


Sic Infit

by herewestandinfireandblood (fairytale_bliss)



Series: Amor Vincit Omnia [2]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Friendship, Jorah Mormont Lives, Minor Character(s): Stark Siblings, Minor Character: Jon Snow, Minor Character: Lord Varys, Minor Character: Tyrion Lannister, Pre-Relationship, Unacknowledged Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 06:03:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24410008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairytale_bliss/pseuds/herewestandinfireandblood
Summary: [Showverse] There are a thousand things Daenerys must face in the wake of the Long Night.
Relationships: Jorah Mormont & Daenerys Targaryen, Jorah Mormont/Daenerys Targaryen
Series: Amor Vincit Omnia [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1541743
Comments: 9
Kudos: 54
Collections: Jorleesi Bingo Challenge





	Sic Infit

**Author's Note:**

> For the Jorleesi Bingo challenge organised by Lodessa. Originally this wasn't going to see the light of day (I wrote most of it after 8.3 aired), but a line of the bingo card had elements of things touched on here, so I figured I could make it work.
> 
> Bingo prompts were: public provocation; unresolved sexual tension; mistaken identities; sword fighting lesson; swimming lesson.
> 
> Most are thematic rather than direct scenes, but I hope it works anyway.

There is no sound as dawn breaks. No ravens cawing as they take flight. Not even Drogon and Rhaegal grunting and snapping at each other, a sound that can cover miles in the stillness. Winterfell does not bloom with life around them as the smallfolk rise to begin their day.

It’s so quiet that Daenerys isn’t entirely sure that they survived the Long Night.

But she has. She’s walked through a nightmare so vivid that it’s impossible for it not to be real.

The cloying stench of death still clings to her. Metallic blood in her nostrils, in her mouth. Clothes stiff with it. Dried on the side of her face, streaked across her forehead. On her hands. Her blood, her enemies’ blood.

Jorah’s blood.

Her eyes itch and burn, but she keeps her gaze fixated on her knight’s prone form as he sleeps in the quarters that had been given over to her use, as is befitting the Queen of Westeros.

The fact that he still clings to life is astonishing. After every hit he took, for her...

Tears make her eyes hurt worse, and she blinks them away. She fears if she starts crying now, she’ll never stop.

He’s still here, that’s what she has to hold on to. Sam has given him milk of the poppy for the pain and had set about tending his wounds with a feverish single-mindedness. It’s too soon to know for certain whether he’ll come out the other side, but it won’t stop her from praying to the old gods, the new gods, the bloody lord of light, every god in existence if it means that one of them will heed her plea.

She needs him by her side. Now more than ever.

Jorah is so still in this sacred silence, and Daenerys reaches out to take his right hand—his sword hand—between both of hers. There’s dried blood there too, and the scabs on his knuckles have freshly cracked open with the ferocity of his desire to protect her. A real bear.

Sam had had to cut his shirt away, for it had been stuck to his skin, the wounds so sticky and gaping.

“I don’t think you should see this, Your Grace,” he’d said timidly, but she’d thrown her shoulders back and adopted her queenliest voice.

“Ser Jorah is blood of my blood,” she’d told him. “He has been by my side longer than anyone else. He saved my life tonight. I will not leave him.”

_I am sworn to protect you, to serve._

_You know I would die for you._

_I would never abandon you._

She had been so lost without him, but when she had clamped eyes on him again in Mereen, she had embraced her anger and resentment, had told herself that he would never be the man he had once been in her eyes, for she would never be able to trust him the same again. Even as she had taken his proffered hand, she’d told herself that all of this was just a mummer’s trick, that what had been destroyed with dragonfire could not be restored to its former glory.

He had come back anyway, saved her life again.

And as she’d stood there out in the heat of the Essosi sun, taking in the sight of the greyscale that was creeping up his arm, the truth had been known to her.

His was the purest form of belief in her, and at last she could see that she could trust him with everything she had. When she was with him, she was not afraid.

His actions on the battlefield have proven her right. He was the one who had come for her, who had slashed and hacked at the dead, who had taken blow after blow to keep her alive.

She had never held a weapon in her life, but he was the one she had snatched it up for, the one she had been determined to protect in return.

And so she had stayed in the corner whilst Sam worked, refusing to look away from the injuries that plagued his body. She was not the sort of queen who would shy away from the pain of the people who stood by her.

Sam had told her that the outcome might not be the one she was hoping for. The fact that they had got him as far as they had was a blessing from the gods.

Quite how they managed it was another miracle.

The dead had fallen. Jorah had fallen. And she’d held him in her arms, clung to him like the child she had been so many moons ago, tears streaking through the grime on her face. She’d been paralysed by fear—she, rightful Queen of Westeros, the Mother of Dragons, Breaker of Chains—had had half a mind to lay there beside her dying knight and let the cold have her too.

But Drogon, great black beast that he was, was a beacon in the night and before long there were shouts, pounding feet. Grey Worm sprinted from the darkness, throwing down his spear when he saw them. He hollered over his shoulder in Valyrian, and more Unsullied flew to his side. Relief flooded her at the sight of him, covered in mud and blood but blissfully alive. She had no doubt that she had sacrificed a great many of her troops this night, and no one would ever sing songs about their sacrifice, or even know their _names_. Only she would mourn them all, the men she had freed and who had chosen to follow her to the ends of the earth anyway.

“My Queen!” Grey Worm shouted, picking his way through the garden of bones to her side. “Are you hurt?”

“No,” she panted. “I’m fine, I’m fine. But Grey Worm, it’s Jorah...!”

Panic made her voice thin and reedy, and Grey Worm’s eyes widened as he took in the sight of his injured comrade, but Daenerys was glad of the Unsullied’s reputation for feeling no fear as he immediately sprang into action, ordering the men he’d brought with him to gather Jorah up.

“Be careful with him,” she pleaded. “We must save him.”

The Unsullied moved with swift proficiency, lifting Jorah like a ragdoll between them and making their way back towards Winterfell’s smouldering walls. She scrambled to her feet, limbs feeling like water. Grey Worm must have anticipated how she felt, for he had been there with a steadying hand. Drogon, obviously waiting for a sign, seemed to understand that she was in good hands now, and stretched his great wings, almost spanning the bleeding sky. He took off with almost enough force to send her tumbling back to the ground, his roars shaking the air; no doubt he was off to take care of his wounds, to find Rhaegal, to mourn the loss of his brother Viserion all over again, for the end of the Night King had surely brought about the demise of her third dragon once more. She would take a moment to grieve him too.

But that was to be later, when they had taken care of the living.

“How many are dead?” she panted as she hurried along beside Grey Worm, refusing to look away from the devastation around her. Others might avert their eyes and shy away, but she refused to be the kind of queen who was blind to the suffering of others. She had not been that person in Essos. She refused to let Westeros warp her.

“Thousands,” Grey Worm said grimly.

Most of her Dothraki. Hundreds of her Unsullied.

They walked the rest of the way in silence, snow crunching under their boots, the lingering, acrid stench of fire clinging to their nostrils.

It had been a relief to reach Winterfell’s crumbling walls. The survivors were packed into the courtyard like fish caught in a fisherman’s net; Jorah and her Unsullied were nowhere in sight. She was determined to find him, but first she needed to make sure that the rest of her followers were safe.

She found them clustered together, safe and alive. Varys inclined his head at her, and she realised with an awful jolt that he had _blood_ streaked across his forehead, Varys who had been hidden in the crypts because he was not a warrior. Tyrion nodded at her, his face twisted in a grimace. Missandei’s eyes were hollow, and Dany abandoned all pretence of queenliness to hug the other woman fiercely. She had never had women friends before, and that was what Missandei was to her. A very, very good friend.

“Are you all right?” she asked urgently, clutching at her forearms. “What happened?”

She exchanged looks with Tyrion and Varys, trembling. “The Starks in the crypts...”

A shiver of horror that had nothing to do with the cold chilled her spine. She did not need to hear the rest. She had seen the power of the Night King herself; it seemed in trying to protect the women and children, they had simply given them a grave to sit in.

“And Mormont?” Tyrion said, craning his neck to peer around them. “Where is the sour old bear?”

The words almost broke her; she remembered with awful clarity just where he was, just what had happened. It would not do to cry in front of her followers, but it was a damned near impossible task. She blinked fiercely, her voice thin around the lump in her throat.

“He was badly wounded on the battlefield. He might not...”

Her voice tailed off; it felt like treason to even think the thing she couldn’t say. Ser Jorah Mormont had been by her side since the beginning. She could not imagine living without his presence a second time.

Whatever Tyrion Lannister was, he was a perceptive man and there was little doubt that he could read the torment she was in.

“Go,” he said quietly.

“I should be here...”

“You should be with him. Your people will understand. We understand.” He gave a wry grin. “Mormont was terrible company on the way to Mereen, wouldn’t know a joke if it slapped him in the face, but he’s a good man.”

_I’ve never seen a sane man as devoted to anything as he is to serving you._

_He is in love with you, I think._

_Tyrion Lannister was right. I love you. I’ll always love you._

She might not be able to give him what he truly wanted, but she could be there by his side as he had been there by hers.

So, giving a short nod, she had turned away from the others and gone to find him.

She hasn’t moved since. Every muscle is aching and sore, she would love nothing more than to get out of these clothes, but she won’t leave him.

He had not abandoned her. She will not abandon him now when he needs her. No matter how long she has to sit here, she will not leave him alone.

His face, battered and bruised, is smoother in his unconsciousness, flattening away the lines of worry that have marred his face for so many years. His breathing is low and laboured, a death rattle in his chest. A small, childish part of her believes that the only thing keeping him there with her is her hands clutching at his, her touch anchoring him to the world of the living. As long as he has that, he won’t leave her. He swore vows to serve her.

_I will never abandon you._

He won’t do that if he knows that she’s still there, still needs him with every fibre of her being...

So she clutches his hand as tightly as she can and squeezes her eyes closed, pleading with the gods not to take him from her for good.

* * *

She must have dozed at some point, in that uncomfortable chair, for she wakes to the sun blazing through the slanted window, her neck stiff and sore, her hands still wrapped around Jorah’s. For a moment, sleep-drunk as she is, she is panicked to wake to the silence, pushes herself up frantically so that she can peer down at him, her heart already constricting—but then his chest rises and falls laboriously, and she knows he is still with her, and the knot loosens enough for her to breathe too. The sun is inordinately bright for a castle in mourning, and its long fingers reach Jorah in her bed, caressing his features and throwing his injuries into harsh relief. Her bear looks terrifyingly fragile.

But she was right. Sam had told her that he might not make it through the night, such was the severity of his injuries, but here he stood, strong and defiant like the words of his house.

The door creaks open behind her. She turns her head enough to see Samwell Tarly lingering timidly in the doorway.

“I’ve come to check on Ser Jorah, Your Grace,” he says. “How is he?”

“Alive,” she replies, squeezing his hand tighter.

“Mormont is a stubborn old bear,” comes Tyrion’s voice from behind Sam. “He won’t do us the satisfaction of leaving us in peace.” The words are brisk, but Dany knows that her Hand is doing his usual clever trick of deflecting what he’s really feeling with sarcasm and indifference. He waddles further into the room, coming to a rest by her side, grimacing in sympathy. “Gods, he was ugly enough before.”

Dany resists the urge to roll her eyes—and to defend her knight. It’s true that he looks a mess now, fresh from the battle as he is, but she can’t say he’s _ugly_. He’s much older than she is, but he isn’t displeasing to look at. His face is as familiar to her as any, brings her the greatest comfort. She can well imagine a great many ladies being attracted to him.

Not that she will ever say that aloud. She doesn’t want to endure Tyrion’s sly little glances and sly little jabs.

Besides, she’s with Jon.

At the thought of her lover, Dany’s stomach lurches unpleasantly.

Her lover and her _nephew_ , if he is to be believed.

The true heir to the Iron Throne.

She pushes that away. No, she cannot think on that now.

“What is it you want?” she asks, perhaps a tad more roughly than she should have done.

Tyrion raises his eyebrows, but is wise enough to make no comment. “Lady Stark is wondering where you are. As are the rest of your people.”

Ah, yes, doubtless the lady of Winterfell has been looking for the opportunity to drive a spear between her shoulder blades. She feels the mislike and mistrust wherever she goes in this castle. Dragons are not afraid of anything, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t feel the weight of those heavy northern scowls.

“They know where I am. I’m here, with Ser Jorah.”

“They want to see you. A thousand people died for you.”

“For Jon,” she points out, and this time she can’t mask her resentment; this time Tyrion can’t hide his surprise.

“Well...the northerners did,” he concedes. “But your Dothraki and Unsullied died for _you_.”

Daenerys deflates at once, the guilt gnawing at her all over again. It’s uncharacteristic for her, to feel threatened. She’s spent so many years being sure of her one true purpose, of having followers who would fall on their swords in a heartbeat for her should it help her cause in any way.

It makes her angry, too, that she should feel this way. She shakes her head.

“You’re right, of course,” she says. “My soldiers fought bravely for me.”

“And many of the northerners fell too,” he says. “It’s expected of you to...”

“I know what’s expected of me,” she says, but she has no fire left now. Expectations, expectations, expectations. That’s all she’s ever known. For once in her life she would love nothing more than to do what she _wants_ , to damn what the world expects from her. Now, in the wake of such devastation, she wants to stay here with Jorah, wants to stay with the people who love her the most, to surround herself with their protection.

But queens rarely get what they want.

Still, she holds her head high. “You’re Hand of the Queen for a reason, to aid me when I need it.”

“I’m hardly more well-liked here than you,” Tyrion says with a twisted smile. “My brother and sister saw to that.”

They’ve murdered a thousand people between them, she thinks, on top of all the other heinous things they’ve done. But she does not want to argue with Tyrion, so she keeps her own counsel.

“Ser Jorah needs me,” she says.

“You’re fond of him.”

Tyrion’s voice is void of the usual sly digging, but Daenerys feels the need to defend herself nevertheless. “He’s my friend. He was there for me when I had no one else. Of course I’m fond of him.”

“He betrayed you once.”

The fact still stings—she doubts it will ever truly heal—but she juts her chin. “He did. But that’s been forgiven now. And I don’t think anyone can dare question his loyalty again.”

“No,” Tyrion agrees. “He always said that he would die for you if it came to it. He certainly would have done that yesterday.”

_He says he would kill for you, and die for you..._

Daenerys looks back at his face, deathly sickly and marred with cuts and bruises. “If he was prepared to do that for me, the least I can do is stay with him through the worst.”

“If you weren’t a queen, perhaps you could,” says Tyrion softly. “But you are. You have the dead to pay your respects to, and the living to console.”

Paying respects to people she’s never met, consoling people who are not interested in being ruled by her. All the while, the man who does believe in her will be here alone. And what if the worst should happen and she was not there for him...?

Head or heart. The two have constantly warred with each other over the long, grinding journey she’s endured. Doing what she wants over doing what she needs.

She casts her heart aside again. “Fine.” Rising is the hardest thing she’s ever done, and not just for the soreness in her muscles, the pain in her back. Still she keeps a hold of Jorah’s hand, reluctant to complete the final step. She meets Tyrion’s blue-green eyes, which are swimming with sympathy. Instinctively, she knows there’s more that he needs to say, though it causes him obvious pain to do so. She takes a deep breath. She might as well face it now with all of the bravery she has grown over the long, hard years. “What is it?”

Tyrion nods, as if to steel himself. “As you know, there were multiple casualties.”

“Yes,” she says, a touch impatiently. She hates games like this. She prefers to be spoken to plainly.

“Theon Greyjoy was amongst them,” Tyrion continues.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” And she is; but Theon had made it clear that he had come to Winterfell to fight for Sansa Stark, not for her, despite his pledge.

But that’s still not the worst of it.

Daenerys has heard the saying dark wings, dark words, but it comes in many forms. She had not expected it to come in the shape of her Hand, dressed all in black.

“Lyanna Mormont was found amongst the fallen too,” he says softly. “And the rest of the men of Bear Island. She clings to life but her chances are bleak. She fought off a giant.”

The bottom drops out of Dany’s stomach, and she instinctively tightens her grip on Jorah’s hand. “From what I knew of her, she was braver than ten men.” She’d certainly had no qualms about speaking her mind in front of everyone, had been indifferent to her new queen.

Tyrion inclines his head. “Very true. But it also presents another problem.”

Dany braces herself.

“Lyanna Mormont is one of two of the last living Mormonts. She was too young to have children of her own, and the rest of her family died fighting for Robb Stark. There’s only one Mormont left.” Tyrion gives that twisted little half-smile. “If Lady Mormont dies and Ser Jorah makes it through this, the disgraced exile will be the lord of Bear Island once more.”

And there it is.

Daenerys can’t help but squeeze Jorah’s hand all the tighter. “He was going to be Lord Commander of my Queensguard.” She hates the plaintive tone in her voice, making her a young girl all over again.

“I have no doubt that he would have snapped up the honour,” Tyrion agrees. “But he will have other honours to think about should the worst happen. The Mormonts love their honour, even the ones who have disgraced themselves. If Ser Jorah accepts your offer, he swears the old vows that have been passed down through the centuries. He will take no wife, live the rest of his life celibate, and give up his rights to Bear Island. I’m sure he would be happy under normal circumstances to sacrifice all three—” Here he gives her another knowing look.“—But these are not normal circumstances. _If_ he lives, he might be the last living Mormont. He will not want his family name to die with him. So now he will have a choice to make. Serve the legacy of his family, or serve you.”

“Perhaps he can do both,” she says. “Once I am queen, I can change the rules. Ser Jorah could serve me _and_ marry if he so wished.”

“The people of Westeros like tradition,” Tyrion says blithely.

“I’m here to show them a new world.”

“You might find that harder than you realise. Nothing is harder than pleasing the common people.” He shrugs. “I should know, I tried it myself. Even my father didn’t try to influence the changing of the rules when Jaime was made part of the Kingsguard. Of course, Jaime broke those oaths. He was quite good at breaking oaths.”

One was to protect her father, Daenerys thinks, but she bites her tongue. Her father committed many crimes. She has always tried to protect the innocent. Jaime Lannister was trying to do the same. She doesn’t have to like the man, but she can accept the facts.

“I suspect Ser Jorah will be very different,” Tyrion continues. “He betrayed you, but he has an odd sort of moral code. You’ll be asking him to choose between his home and his queen. And even if the law _did_ change, the lord of Bear Island could hardly rule from Kings Landing, could he?”

The words needle anew.

_What do you pray for, Ser Jorah?_

_Home._

He’d betrayed her once for Bear Island. Faced with that choice again, what would he do?

She fears she knows the answer to that.

_When I take the Seven Kingdoms, I need you by my side._

But once the Seven Kingdoms have been taken, the war won, peace restored...

He’d go, she knows it. He’s a northman at heart and he would choose to save his home.

She’ll give nothing away to Tyrion, who can read flickers in expression like the faded pages of old books. “We’ve more pressing matters to attend to first. We have to win the war, for one thing.”

“Yes, Your Grace. We do.”

“And if there’s one person who can overcome a giant, I’ve a feeling it’s Lady Mormont.”

Tyrion gives her a sad smile. “Perhaps. Now, will you come?”

What choice does she have? She gives a stiff nod. “I don’t want Ser Jorah left alone, though. I won’t have him die without anyone here with him.”

“I’ll stay with him,” volunteers a voice from the doorway; Daenerys has been so preoccupied that she’d forgotten all about Samwell Tarly lingering awkwardly there, though his girth hardly makes him hard to miss. “Ser Jorah’s father was a better father to me than my own was. I’ve saved him once. I won’t let him die this time either, Your Grace.”

The lad’s face is earnest, a face she can put her trust in. “If you can do that, I would be very grateful. Ser Jorah is dear to me.”

“He was dear to his father too, even with everything that happened. He never said it, but I knew.”

Dany can well imagine; Mormont men seem to be renowned for their stoicism, for saying little. Tyrion teases about it enough. But Dany also knows that Jeor Mormont must have been quite a man to have a son like Jorah, flawed as he is.

“Thank you,” she says. Letting go of Jorah’s hand is the hardest thing she’s ever done, but she forces herself to do it anyway. It falls like a weight back to his side, limp as a felled bird. She takes a moment more to gather herself, then straightens her back, juts out her chin. “Lead the way, Tyrion.”

Her Hand nods and waddles out in front of her. Daenerys pauses to glance back one more time, her heart aching, and then follows him out of the room.

There is no escaping the death and destruction. She sees it in every haggard face she passes, the isolation, the loss. The very walls of Winterfell seem to be mourning what has passed, vapour poison in the air that they have no choice but to inhale. Children sob for their lost fathers, widows sit with silent tear tracks cleansing their grimy faces, blood and muck cakes the clothes of every veteran as they shuffle about like the wights themselves. She tries to speak to them, to issue a few consoling words, but what can she say? Nothing will fix this. Nothing will undo what has passed. So she just nods at them, her throat tight with the size of the lump lodged there.

She finds Jon in the courtyard. Debris is everywhere, chunks of the once majestic castle knocked down like toy blocks by Viserion, twisted and charred with icy fire. Other survivors sift through the rubble. She pauses.

Tyrion turns around when he realises that she’s no longer following him, arching his eyebrow. “What’s wrong?”

She shakes her head. She’s not about to explain the things roiling about in her stomach, the heavy, sickening dread that rises within her simply looking at Jon’s face. The discomfort she sees reflecting back at her stings, for in that one look from those dark eyes, she knows that he’d rather she be anywhere but standing there. The man that she’d been falling for is looking at her like she is a malevolent ghost.

Her _nephew_.

“Your Grace?”

She realises Tyrion is still regarding her suspiciously, and takes a decisive step forward. Just because Samwell Tarly apparently read about it in a book and his strange brother allegedly _saw_ it, it doesn’t mean it’s true. The North loves the Starks, that’s no secret. They’d embrace the idea of a Stark ruling over them all, never mind the fact he was raised as a bastard, never mind that he is as much Targaryen as Stark if it is true.

“Sorry,” she mutters. “I’m coming.”

Tyrion glances between them. “Lovers’ quarrel?”

“I fail to see how that’s your business.”

“I like to know things. It passes the time.”

“Jorah is right: you talk too much.”

“You’re spending too much time with the old bear if he’s rubbing off on you,” Tyrion says cheerfully.

“Jorah is most often right,” Daenerys retorts. “And you owe him for still being my Hand.”

“I didn’t think he liked me that much.”

“You must have grown on him.”

“I never did much growing.”

Daenerys rolls her eyes, but is saved the trouble of responding because she has reached Jon’s side. Not that that is any better; he looks as if he is suffering from grievous stomach cramps.

“Your Grace,” he says, all stiff and formal.

She doesn’t bother with formalities; right now, she doesn’t know how to _be_ around him, except the queen he bent the knee to. “There were a lot of casualties.”

Jon’s mouth is a grim line as he surveys the devastation around him. “There was.”

“Your family? Your sisters, your brother?”

“Bearing up well.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“And Ser Jorah? I heard he was injured.”

“It’s still too early to tell.” She hates herself for the waver in her voice, betraying her weakness to both men.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Jon says at last. “I know Ser Jorah is your friend.”

A dig? A claim? Right now Daenerys is too exhausted to care. All she wants to do is finish here and drag herself back to Jorah’s side, to hold his strong, calloused hand in her own for her own comfort. It’s the only way she thinks she’ll be able to sleep, feeling the pulse in his wrist resonate within her.

“What are we going to do with the dead?” she asks, refusing to rise to any perceived challenge.

“Burn them,” says Jon. “Arya killed the Night King but we can’t take any chances. We’ll build a pyre.” His mouth twists, his eyes a thousand years away in a different past. “The biggest fire the North has ever seen.”

The sun is setting without ever really rising by the time they are finished. So many dead that it hurts to look at. Daenerys makes sure that she has looked at the face of each of her fallen warriors nevertheless, not looking away from the horrors of their mutilated bodies, whether they’ve had half of their faces wrenched off or their entrails spilled into the snow. They fought for her and she will not forget their sacrifices.

A standalone few have been singled out for their own pyres. Theon Greyjoy. Beric Dondarrion. Eddison Tollett.

Talbert Whitehill, a grizzled old warrior who Jorah had mentioned in passing as being the Master of Arms who had trained him as a boy and who has counselled Lyanna in turn.

Sansa wants to burn Theon, for the way he came back to fight for the Starks.

Jon takes Edd, a fellow brother of the Night’s Watch and a good friend.

Arya stands for Beric, for he sacrificed himself to save her—her and everyone else.

“I will burn Ser Talbert,” she says.

All eyes swivel to her.

“You don’t know him,” says Sansa, ever determined to be a thorn in her side.

“He was a prevalent member of House Mormont’s household,” she retorts. “Lady Mormont may support you, but Jorah is my advisor. Neither Lady Mormont or Ser Jorah can be here to do it themelves. As Ser Jorah’s queen—as his _friend_ —I will do this for him. It’s what he would want. Ask him when he wakes.”

They stare each other down for a few moments. It’s Jon who breaks the silence, ever the peace keeper. “Ser Jorah would want that, and Lady Mormont would want him to be honoured.”

Clearly Sansa doesn’t want to argue with her brother, so she falls silent. Arya narrows her eyes, but says nothing either. Even now, Daenerys can’t quite bring herself to be grateful to Jon. He still won’t meet her eye.

The ceremony begins with no other objections. Jon takes the lead, his hoarse voice ringing out in the chilled air.

“We’re here to say goodbye to our brothers and sisters. To our fathers and mothers. To our friends. Our fellow men and women who set aside their differences to fight together and die together so that others might live...”

Daenerys tunes his words out as she stares down at the old man. He must have been seventy or more, and would have been forgiven for staying with the women and children. And yet he had refused, had fought with all of the ferocity of the North, had led men into battle and had not flinched as the end had approached. He wasn’t a Mormont but living on Bear Island had made him hardly, fierce, loyal. She knows that for herself.

As one, they move forward to touch their torches to the dry wood. It flares up at once, lapping eagerly at the pyres, popping and crackling and consuming. The smoke stings her eyes, but she does not step back or look away. Jorah would not, and she is determined to honour him.

The acrid, putrid stench of melting flesh makes her stomach turn over. The flesh blackens, cracks, taking the tired old man forever. The crowd gathered behind, survivors and victims all, stand as silent as the grave.

When it’s over, Daenerys turns on her heel and goes, ignoring the looks sent her way. There’s only one place she wants to be.

As promised, Samwell Tarly still potters about in her quarters. He smiles when she enters, bobbing his head nervously.

“Your Grace,” he says.

She waves off the formality. “Jorah?”

“Still lives,” he promises her. “I think his breathing’s a little better. He hasn’t woken yet, but that’s probably a good thing. His body is still fighting for him.”

“I pray it continues to do so,” she whispers, taking the chair at his side once more. “Thank you.”

“I owe it to his father,” says Sam. “And I know that Ser Jorah is a good man too. I’ll be back later to check on him.”

With that, he shuffles out of the room, leaving her alone. She curls up in the chair, grasps his hand in hers, cups his rough cheek in her left palm and leans in close to his ear, the words so quiet that she can barely hear them herself.

“I’m here with you, Jorah,” she breathes. “I need you. Please don’t leave me.”

It’s the most she can say. Jorah’s face remains still and pale, and the first tears slip from her eyes.

* * *

Her vigil does not end; she feels like a fabled brother of the Night’s Watch. She takes her meals on a tray. She dozes sitting up. Her limbs are sore, her back stiff, but she will not move to find somewhere more comfortable to sleep. Her hair has fallen out of its intricate braids, hanging down around her shoulders like a tangled nest. Missandei has offered to brush it out and redo, but her appearance is the last thing on her mind. The best she’s managed is a quick wash in tepid water at Jorah’s bedside.

Tyrion and Varys have dipped in and out sporadically, wanting to talk about war councils and strategies, but she has told them flatly that until Jorah is awake to sit on them, they are not necessary. Jorah is her best warrior, and the most trusted of her advisors. She values his opinions, knows that he will have something valuable to add, some tiny insight that everyone else has overlooked.

And she will not march on King’s Landing without him sitting there at her right hand side.

The rest will do her soldiers good, no doubt. In an ideal world she would have marched immediately, lest Cersei mobilise her army, but she has wounded in her ranks, including her precious Rhaegal, and Jorah has always counselled her to have patience. She has waited years to take her throne. She can wait a few more weeks for Jorah.

Jon is conspicuously absent. He is avoiding her, she knows it. He has dropped a pot of wildfire into their midst and is leaving her to navigate the ruins alone.

She _is_ alone. Who can she trust? Jon is the true heir to the Iron Throne, and she is the pretender. She has spent so much of her adult life believing that it’s hers by right, only to have it ripped away from her so close to the end. He could oppose her if he wanted. He will tell his family, of that she is sure. And why should the Starks then rally to her side if they have Jon to support?

There’s nothing she can do.

So she sits by her knight’s side, a young girl all over again.

* * *

On the fourth day, as she is dozing fitfully at her post, a low, soft groan issues from the bed at her side. Constantly on edge these days, she jerks awake at once, her gaze darting around the room. It takes her a few seconds to realise that it’s _Jorah_ making the noise. She scrambles up at once, her chair toppling over with a crash, leaning over him as he lies there prostrate. His eyelids flutter. It’s the first sign of movement she’s seen save for the imperceptible rise and fall of his chest.

“Jorah,” she says, hushed, urgent. “Jorah, can you hear me?”

His lips twitch; he opens his eyes a sliver. Several more seconds pass before a muffled, grating sound issues from his throat again. She thinks it’s supposed to be her title. Khaleesi.

It is enough.

She sweeps her hand through his sweat-soaked hair, cups his chin, the thick growth of beard prickling her fingers. His eyes open a little more, and he stares sightlessly up at her face for a few moments more, before life flashes back to him. He knows her, and it’s the most beautiful thing she has ever seen, even more beautiful than her dragons.

“Khaleesi,” he manages at last, and she could weep for the joy of it. His voice is husky from thirst and ill-use, but it is his voice nonetheless, and she had been terrified that she would never hear it again.

“I’m here,” she promises, thumb sweeping the line of his jaw. She reads the question clouded in his eyes, repeats the gesture. “I swear to you that this is real. I’m here.”

“And I’m not dead?”

She laughs, and the tears that seem to come so readily these days are there again, welling warmly. “You’re not dead, I’m not dead.”

“We won?”

“We won, Jorah.”

His eyes fall closed again, and there is no mistaking the sweet relief lining his battle-bruised face. She squeezes his hand once more, unable to express her emotions in any other way, then slips away from him to retrieve the jug of water left untouched on the side. She pours a goblet for him then returns, easing the fingers of one hand under his skull, cradling him as tenderly as a mother might cradle her babe.

“Drink,” she says softly.

Jorah’s eyes flutter open again and he shuffles, as if he would quite like to pull away from her but lacks the capacity to do so.

“You shouldn’t,” he says hoarsely. “You are a queen.”

“Queens should take care of their subjects,” she retorts. “It is their duty to protect the people who serve them.”

“I think it’s our job to protect you.”

“Let’s say we should protect each other where we can. Now drink, Jorah.”

She guides his head to the goblet, letting it trickle down his throat in a slow dribble. He pushes further into her, like an eager puppy, but she does not increase the pace.

“You’ll make yourself sick if you drink it too quickly,” she tells him sternly. “There will be plenty more for you, I promise.” She caresses his neck to soften her admonition. For a moment there’s no other sound but his soft gulps as his thirst is quenched. At last he pushes at her wrist, weakly, signalling he is slaked. She places the goblet on the side and gently lowers him back to the mattress. He groans.

“How long have I been here?” he asks.

“A few days.”

“Your armies?”

“Depleted,” she says with a tight smile.

“Grey Worm? Missandei? The others?”

“They’re all safe and well,” she reassures him.

“Jon?” he asks carefully. Even injured, as frail ad he is, he is still sensitive enough to ask. She turns away from his gaze, unwilling to let him see things that she is not ready to give voice to.

“Jon is fine too,” she says.

“I’m very glad to hear that. He defeated the Night King?”

She snorts. “No. Arya did.”

“Arya?” He’s silent for a moment, then gives a painful little chuckle. “That doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. We don’t underestimate our she-bears where I’m from. Speaking of she-bears...”

Sickening dread floods her body. It’s not a conversation she wants to have with him right now. Lyanna has made no progress in these last few days, lingering between the worlds of the living and the dead like a sad soul untethered. She busies herself with fussing with the furs around him on the pretence of ensuring he’s tucked in tight. “We can discuss the battle later. You need to rest now.”

“Daenerys, please.”

_Daenerys, please._

She’s transported back to the last time he used those words in that imploring tone, the way he had reached out for her, how she had held her hands up to stop him in his tracks.

 _Don’t_ ever _presume to touch me again, or speak my name._

She touches him now, brushing her thumb under his swollen cheekbone. She wants to weep for him, but she is a queen and queens must be strong.

The question is in his eyes, but there’s resignation, dread. Jorah is a shrewd man. Practical. He knows what’s coming.

It breaks her heart to have to be the one to tell him anyway. “Lyanna...she’s very ill, Jorah. Her chances are less by the hour. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She is, more than words can possibly convey. Sorry for the fierce little girl who had had her whole life ahead of her but had sacrificed herself protecting others so much older, a legend long before her years. Sorry for Jorah, who is on the cusp of being the only bear left alive in this world, who will potentially have to begin the long process of reconciling the fact that he survived when his little cousin did not.

Sorry for herself, because when the Last War is won, should Lyanna pass, they will have to part for the final time, and she cannot even bear the thought of being without him again.

Jorah swallows hard, the lump in his throat bobbing painfully. He turns his head to the side, but not quickly enough; she sees the anguish glistening in his eyes, the tightness of his jaw, already so defined, beneath his skin. He can’t hide from her. She knows him too well, knows him as well as he knows her. He is hurting more than just physically, and she wishes she could take that away for him.

“How?” he says at last, his voice like gravel.

“I don’t know,” she tells him, a lie she feels she has to tell. It is at least believable; there was far too much chaos that night for anyone to be certain of anything, of focusing on anything else but survival with each swing of the sword. But there is enough to know that little Lyanna Mormont suffered greatly in her encounter with the giant. The reports of her mangled, compressed body, the blood on her face, the strange way she was twisted, as if all of her bones had been crushed...

Jorah does not need to know about that. He has enough ghosts in his head without her adding the spectre of his mangled cousin.

“Talbert Whitehill fell too,” she says.

Jorah clenches his jaw anew. “I’m sorry to hear that. He was a good man. A great warrior.”

“I know. We burned him,” she tells him softly. “We burned all of them. I took charge of Ser Talbert for you. I was a poor substitute for you and Lyanna, but I wanted to represent you when you couldn’t represent yourself. I hope that that was the right thing to do.”

“It was. Thank you, Your Grace.”

“You don’t have to thank me for anything, Jorah.” Daenerys risks reaching out now, slipping her hand back into his, running her thumb along the coarse skin she finds there. “If there’s one person who should be saying thank you here, it’s me. You saved my life.”

“I did what a knight is supposed to do.”

She shakes her head. “No. You went above and beyond. You came to find me. Out there, on the battlefield. How did you know...?”

“I heard Drogon,” he says. Instinct took over.”

Instinct for the woman he loves, not his queen.

Jon had been nearer, surely could have turned back if he had wanted to...

And he hadn’t. He must have been in the vicinity still, for she had only just burned the wights for him, but he had chosen to press on for the godswood and his brother.

His cousin.

She swallows hard, shakes the thought away. “I owe you my life. Again.”

“You owe me nothing,”

“I owe you everything,” she tells him firmly. “I wouldn’t be here without you. I can push on for the Iron Throne only because you put your life on the line for me.”

“As is my duty, Your Grace. The oaths I swore to you are true. I will never break them, I swear it by the old gods and the new.”

“I know.” She does. With her whole heart. The reality of it makes it harder. His betrayal is a thing that will never come between them again. Doubt will never cross her mind. He is hers, completely and utterly.

It terrifies her that she has such power over his life. That one day she might have to be without him. During his banishment she had told herself she did not need him. Her anger fuelled her, numbed her loneliness. She had got through his greyscale by telling herself that he was somewhere in the world. This was different. She saw it with her own eyes, how close he had come to death. Minutes away. Bloodied, wheezing, clinging to life for her and her alone. She never wants to witness that again. Not with Jorah. She clutches his hand tighter.

“I need you to swear me a new oath,” she says.

“Anything,” he promises, and it _hurts_ because she knows it’s the truth. He would swear her any oath she asked of him, whatever impossible feat she demanded. Falling on his sword, travelling to the edges of the world...

“Don’t die on me,” she says.

He huffs a painful laugh that she supposes is supposed to lighten the tension but does no such thing. “Khaleesi, even I cannot promise you that. I can swear to serve you well until my dying breath, but I cannot defy the gods if they want my life.”

“I know you cannot promise never to die. Immortality is not for us. But you can promise to get yourself well and to survive the Last War. I want you by my side when I ascend my throne.” It might be one of the last things they ever share with each other. If he were to die before the end...it would all be hollow. He is the one person who has been with her from the beginning, who saw her step into the pyre and watched her rebirth. The idea of him not being there for the end of the journey...it’s unthinkable.

Jorah looks at her with that quiet intensity he has, the one that had been too much at one time but now never seems to be enough. He seems to be analysing her. She wonder what he sees; doesn’t know what it can be when all she feels is a toxic knot of confusion twisting her insides, impossible to untangle. Slowly, he nods.

“I promise not to die before I see you take the Iron Throne,” he says. “There’s no sight I wish to see more than that. You belong there, and we shall win it for you.”

 _We_. No doubt he means the people of Westeros too, the other great houses who came together under the unity of Jon Snow and House Stark to fight for the living. She doubts it will be as easy as that. These northerners have no interest in her war, nor in bending the knee. They want the rule of the Starks, not the Targaryens.

Even though Jon is a trueborn Targaryen himself, a wolf-dragon forged from ice and fire. It sours her stomach.

“Khaleesi?”

Daenerys jolts back to herself, forces a smile that feels tight on her cheeks. “I have the utmost faith in everyone. Now, you must rest.”

“I have been resting for days,” he argues.

“You’ve been _fighting_ for days,” she returns, taking in the sight of his near-transparent colouring and the frailness in his once strong form. “Now you shall rest and return to full strength for me. I need you back at my side. Don’t fear. I shan’t abandon you. But now I am assured that you’re truly on the mend, I shall take my leave to have a bath. I must look a sight.”

He shakes his head. “You could never look anything less than beautiful.”

The words linger between them; Jorah moves his gaze to the ceiling, wincing as if he fears reprimand for overstepping his bounds. Since the day he revealed the greyscale to her, he has never been so open. His affection—his love—has been silently nurtured, spoken in looks and the soft press of a kiss to her knuckles.

She finds that she does not mind the openness. Jon is still avoiding her, and she isn’t sure what she wants to hear from him now. Jorah’s unwaveringness means more to her than she can verbalise.

So she doesn’t. Bends down instead to press a kiss to his forehead, breathing in the iron stench of blood and the sour sweat that clings to him, so different to the faintly woodsy smell she is used to. He is still clammy to the touch, but he’s alive and that’s all that matters.

She lingers against him longer than she should, closing her eyes to commit it to memory. And then she pulls away, straightens back into the role of queen.

“Rest,” she repeats firmly. “I’ll come and see you tomorrow, all right?”

“Yes, Your Grace,” he says, returning to his own role. She’s grateful for that. Right now everything is too distorted.

“Sleep well, my knight,” she murmurs.

“You too, Khaleesi,” he returns.

She wants to linger longer, but there is no reason to. She turns and walks away, the distance between them already tugging on her heartstrings.

* * *

Contrary to Jorah’s wish, she does not sleep well. She tosses and turns all night thinking on things she cannot change or stop. Jon, Jorah, the impending war, the final leg of this long, strickening journey, spins round and round in her head until it all blurs into one...All she wants to do is creep back into Jorah’s room and curl up at his bedside as she has done on the last few nights. Her sleep wasn’t restful then, either, but his presence there was a calming influence, her reminder that she was never truly alone. Her hand in his kept her grounded as much as him. And he is the truest ally she will ever have. It had helped her having him so close by, had made her feel less alone in this strange place.

When she does sleep, she dreams of snow in the Throne room, of the exulted cries for Jon, their one true king. She helped save Westeros, but Westeros does not care for her. She is a foreign invader raining fire and blood, not the queen they want. She drowns in blood and wakes gasping for air, drenched in sweat.

There’s a knock on her door just as dawn approaches.

Daenerys throws the covers away, grateful for any kind of distraction from her thoughts. She grabs one of the furs from her bed and wraps it around her shoulders to keep away the chilling snap of the northern winds.

“Who is it?” she calls. Half of her hopes that it might be Jorah, well enough to be out of bed even though she knows he does not yet have the strength for that. The other half of her hopes it might be Missandei, for her friend is one of the few she has here, certainly the only woman, and she is more grateful for her than ever.

“It’s me,” comes Jon’s voice, and Dany’s heart sinks despite itself—and isn’t that the worst thing of all, that the sound of him brings her deep misery and not the greatest comfort? “Can I come in?”

“Of course,” she says automatically; she has no reason to bar him. They haven’t shared a bed since the night before they reached Winterfell, wanting to preserve some kind of regal distance in Jon’s childhood home, but she doubts they’re fooling anyone, not really. She’s seen it in Jorah’s quiet resignation, Tyrion’s smirks, Varys’ calculating looks, Missandei’s glances, Ser Davos’ raised eyebrows. She’d told Sansa Stark outright that she loved Jon. Arya Stark is a mystery, but she seems to have the chilling ability to read everyone. Bran Stark apparently sees _everything_ , the whole world, past and present, ringing in his head, a cacophony of sound that could surely induce madness. The smallfolk...they’re incontestably whispering about the mating rituals of the dragon queen and the wolf king behind their hands. No one would be shocked to find him in her chambers.

Whatever passion they’d had on the journey from Dragonstone has fizzled. And she is forced to confront the fact that perhaps she’s never loved him at all if just the sound of his name can fill her with such antipathy. She steels herself and pulls open the door.

Jon’s expression is pained. It seems to be his default look these days. He slips in as if he is committing a great crime. To him, he probably is, slipping into his aunt’s room in the wee hours of the morning. He is careful not to brush against her as he squeezes his way inside. Already fully dressed, he looks as if he’s worn more layers than usual to keep her seductions at bay. He needn’t bother. She’s not in the right mind to be thinking about that. Incestuous relationships aren’t as taboo to her as they are to the rest of Westeros, for she’d spent her childhood thinking she would be Viserys’ sister-wife as was the ancient Targaryen tradition to keep the bloodline pure, but right now she can’t see past her claim to the Iron Throne diminishing, and it frightens her. She can’t take Jon to bed not knowing if he’s going to stab her in the back.

“I’m glad to hear Ser Jorah is awake,” he says stiffly by way of greeting.

“So am I,” she allows.

“He’ll be ready to pick up his sword again in no time, you’ll see.”

Daenerys nods. “What did you want?” There’s little point in making niceties when they both know he’s there for a reason. A reason she probably won’t like.

Jon drops all pretence, scrubbing a hand down his face. “Dany, I have to tell them.”

Her stomach drops like a stone. “What?” She doesn’t need him to elaborate. _Them_ can only be one group. The Starks. The people he considers his true family. His brothers and sisters, no matter what blood says.

“I can’t lie to them.” Jon’s dark brown eyes—Stark traits, not Targaryen—plead with her. He is all Stark. Dark hair, long, mournful face. Northern to the bone marrow. She sees nothing delicately Valyrian in his features. No echo of Rhaegar. She doesn’t know what her brother looked like, but she imagines he was like Viserys, except far more handsome and regal. Everyone says how handsome he was. Jon is not ugly by any stretch, but he has that dour northern aura that clings to him like snow to his hair.

No one would ever guess the truth.

“You _have_ to,” she implores. It’s pathetic, how desperate she sounds, but she has no choice. “If this gets out—”

“I don’t _want_ your crown, Dany,” he says forcefully. “I never wanted one.”

“You have one,” she points out, more spitefully than she should.

“I did it for the good of the north,” he retorts.

She flexes her fingers. It’s for the north. It’s always for the north. “And we all know who the _north_ would rather have rule them. Will you wear the crown if the north begs it of you?”

“That’s not fair,” he says. “You are my queen.”

“You bent the knee for the good of the north,” she quips bitterly. She’d thought he’d done it out of love for her, because she would be a good queen. It had always been about getting her vast army north to fight _their_ battle against the dead. And now she isn’t allowed to ask for anything in return.

Jon huffs, resting his hand against the pommel of his sword. “Why can’t you understand? I can’t lie to them. They deserve to know the truth. Bran already knows. They won’t let it spread any further, not if I ask them to keep it a secret. They’re good people.”

And maybe they are, but only to fellow northmen. To outsiders, they’re as inhospitable as the land around them. “Sansa doesn’t like me.”

“But she loves _me_. She won’t betray me.”

Only a week ago had Jon confessed to her that Sansa hadn’t liked _him_ very much in their childhood. It doesn’t fill her with confidence that Sansa will keep any promise she makes.

“Please don’t do this,” she says.

“I _have_ to,” he says. “I can’t keep this to myself. It’s about who I _am_.”

A boy raised as a bastard, now the trueborn son of two of the greatest houses in Westeros. The Starks are his family. He does not seem to consider herself family. She has spent so long as the last Targaryen roaming the earth. Now his claim overshadows hers, and he still doesn’t want to be anything but a Stark.

And what can she do to stop him? She could demand it of him as his queen and she has no doubt that he would swear the oath and keep it, but he would resent her for it and that could be more damaging in the long-term. Faced with such an insurmountable decision, she has never felt more alone.

Except she isn’t, is she? Not really. Because she still has Jorah.

“At least allow me a day to think on how it should be handled,” she says. “Can you at least give me that?” After everything she’s sacrificed for him, he should.

Sure enough, Jon bows his head respectfully. “Thank you, Dany.” He doesn’t pretend to want anything else from her, turning on his heel and slipping out of the room, leaving her alone.

* * *

After a conversation like that, there’s no resting. She summons one of her Unsullied soldiers and tells him to wait by her chambers for Missandei’s arrival, knowing that her friend will worry if she comes by later and finds her missing.

“I’m going to see Ser Jorah,” she says. “If anyone needs me, send them there to find me.”

The Unsullied nods and stations himself by her doorway. She moves her way through the draughty corridors to Jorah’s quarters and slips inside, trying not to make too much noise. She doesn’t want to wake him, not when he needs all the rest he can get to get back to full fitness. But being close to him is the only thing that seems to bring her a modicum of comfort. He has been the constant in her life for the past few years, and even when she banished him she had found herself thinking of him often, longing for his advice.

When she creeps to his bed, she does indeed find him asleep. His breaths rattle slightly, but they are much improved on what they were, and he is tucked snugly beneath swathes of fur. There’s no intention of losing him to the cold.

Silently, she takes the seat beside him, clasping her hands in her lap to stop herself from reaching out for him. Instead she focuses her eyes on her face, drinking him in as if she’s been deprived of him for years, never mind days. His brush with death _felt_ like years. Years of agonising limbo, waiting to see if she would be mourning the person who meant most to her.

His face is lined and wearied in respite. Weary of fighting, no doubt. But he will. Because she’s asked it of him. Without the shadows of the guttering candles, he’s ghostly in the grey light of day, the bruise on his cheekbone thrown into sharp relief.

Terror and uncertainty swirls around inside her, but here, in this room with him, she has battled her way into the eye of the storm and curled up in its centre, safe for the moment as the chaos swirls around her. For now, it’s just the two of them in the world.

Daenerys isn’t sure how much time passes before Jorah’s breathing changes; she leans forward as his eyelids flutter. He doesn’t seem to realise that he’s looking at her initially, but then his clouded gaze floods with recognition.

“Khaleesi?” he croaks. “What—?”

She shushes him, not wanting to explain her presence, her desire to be close. She busies herself with getting him another goblet of water. This time, he pushes himself up weakly, just enough to take it himself. It heartens her.

“I’ll send for some food for you in a moment,” she says.

“Don’t bother yourself, Your Grace. I’m fine.”

She rolls her eyes. Stubborn bear. “You’re not fine. You need sustenance to keep your strength up, especially when you haven’t eaten for days.”

“It’s early,” he notes, gaze sweeping the room. “You should be resting yourself.”

“I’m fine.” She sweeps the comment aside.

The side of his mouth curls. “Now who’s being stubborn?”

She concedes that with a shake of the head. “You shouldn’t make fun of your queen.”

“I would never make fun of you,” he says, sobering. “What’s bothering you?”

“How do you know there’s anything wrong?”

Jorah raises his eyebrow. “You wouldn’t be here so early if that weren’t true.”

Except...except that’s not true. She can’t imagine herself being anywhere else. She fought by his side, watched him take those blades for her over and over again, watched him fall, clung to him as the light faded out of his eyes and his eyes stopped seeing her. In that terrible moment when she’d thought he’d left her side for good, her whole world had collapsed around her. Nothing had mattered anymore. Not the Iron Throne. Not Jon. Not her own life. In that moment, the dead could have taken her too.

But all of that is too complicated, too much to unbox when there’s so much that still needs to be done. So she says nothing to contradict him, glancing behind her. She knows she closed the door, but the paranoia creeps up on her like the cold.

“I do need to talk to you about something,” she says. Her hands tremble.

Jorah must sense the gravity of her words, for he struggles into a sitting position with a hiss. She moves to stay him at once. His bare skin is hot beneath her fingers. His shoulder muscles quiver. His breath catches, and she tries not to look at him. Her heart pounds against her ribs. She lets her fingertips brush over those strong shoulders for a few more seconds, learning the texture of his skin. And then she pulls away, forces herself back into her role.

“What I am about to tell you must not leave the two of us,” she says. A part of her is terrified that Bran, or the Three Eyed Raven, or whatever he is, is watching them right now, gathering the intel to report back to the rest of the Starks. But she has to tell _someone_. And who better than the man who has been by her side since the beginning?

“Never,” he assures her, with the seriousness a man would only swear to the woman he loves. “I swear it by all the gods, Khaleesi.”

“I trust you,” she says fondly, sweeping his hair back from his clammy forehead. “I trust you more than anyone.”

Jorah swallows hard, his hands clenching into fists as he pushes himself the final few inches into a fully upright position. “Then tell me. Let me share your burden, Khaleesi, no matter what it is.”

Daenerys knows that no matter what, that is true. Whatever weighs her down he would pick up and carry for her, no matter how much it might hurt him to do so. If she went down to the seven hells he would take that journey with her, whether he deserved to or not. His unwavering devotion to her is too much for her to deal with sometimes, but in moments of peril like this it’s the only thing on earth she can cling to. To know she is never truly alone, not as long as she has him, is a great, steadying comfort.

“It’s about Jon,” she tells him.

Jorah stiffens at once, assuming his natural role of protector. “What has he done?” She loves that that is his first instinct, that he has done something to wrong her, that she blameless. She hasn’t always been, and nor will she always be, and Jorah is no fool. But it is just another way that he shows his unwavering belief in her, and it bolsters her.

“He hasn’t done anything,” she soothes.

“Then what?” Jorah frowns, clearly trying to comprehend why he would be sworn to secrecy if he hasn’t done anything to hurt her.

“He told me something, before the Long Night...”

“What did he tell you?” he prompts gently. She can see the cogs turning in his head. That he loves her? That he wants to marry her? That they should rule side by side as king and queen, the two leaders Westeros has been crying out for? There’s pain in his eyes, but resolve too; whatever her news he will be pleased for her.

That’s all about to come crashing down.

Daenerys takes a deep breath, looking out at the grey sky beyond Jorah’s bed to avoid having to watch his face. Afraid of what she might see there? Potentially. She’s witnessed the north rallying to Jon’s side, to his banner. Will Jorah feel the same? Does he see Jon as a worthy leader? Worthier than her, if he looked at things objectively? After all, he is a northman. He rallied behind Ned Stark. He fought against Rhaegar and her father. The Mormonts have held faith with the Starks for centuries. Jorah changing allegiance is a novelty. Lyanna has only ever looked at her with disdain, despite her cousin’s devotion.

“Daenerys?”

Her name is spoken softly, tenderly, and her eyes move back to him. It’s the first time he’s used her given name since she banished him.

The familiarity of it rolling off his tongue warms her. Strengthens her. He stares at her with those piercing blue eyes. Nothing in him wavers.

“Jon has told me something that sounds impossible...something I don’t want to believe...but _he_ believes it...”

“Tell me,” Jorah implores.

It comes spilling out. “Jon says that Sam and his brother Bran have discovered something about his heritage. He’s not a bastard boy from the north. Eddard Stark was never his father. He’s the trueborn son of Lyanna Stark and my brother, Rhaegar. Lyanna made Ned Stark swear that he would keep her son safe because she knew that the Usurper would slaughter him, child or no, if he knew he was Targaryen offspring.” Like her, like Viserys, followed by shadow assassins almost all of their lives. “So Ned Stark raised Jon as his son, but he never was. He was his nephew. He’s the true heir to the Iron Throne.”

Stunned silence rings in the wake of this confession. There’s little that fazes Jorah, but he’s truly shocked now, his expression twisted as he tries to comprehend the magnitude of her words. Tension mounts. Say something, she wants to plead. What is he thinking? Is he weighing up Jon’s claim? Deciding where the allegiance of the last remaining male heir to Bear Island should be?

It drags on and on, unbearable.

Jorah wets his lips.

“That’s just fucking typical,” he says.

The profanity catches Dany off guard. In all the years she’s known him, Jorah has never used such language in front of her. There’s little doubt that he _knows_ those words, but he is a knight and he respects his queen far too much to use such crude language. It startles her out of her malaise. “What?”

He shakes his head. “I sold men into slavery. Ned Stark was right to want my head, but it didn’t make me hate him any less. He was a better man than me in almost every way, but I clung on to the fact that he had forsaken his sacred wedding vows and sired a bastard with another woman. My honour has been in tatters for years, but I always got a petty sort of comfort out of the fact that I never lay with another woman whilst I was married. Whatever the differences between he and I, I was a better man than him in that. And now...” He chuckles, a disbelieving, ironic sound. “Now it transpires that he was better than me in that too, putting his honour above all else.”

And his bemusement over _that_ of all things is enough to make her smile for the first time since she last saw him. And then smiling is not enough, for the laughter bubbles in her belly, a foreign sensation after the stress and panic of the last few weeks, and it is impossible to keep it caged. So there they sit, two old friends, laughing at the absurdity of it all, and for the first time since reaching Winterfell, Daenerys feels more like herself.

After a time, the laughter dies, but the silence left behind is not fraught. Some of the tension has leeched out of her, and she feels a great surge of affection for the man lying in this bed. He above everyone knows how to make her feel better, how to steady her when it seems as if things are spiralling out of her control. It has to manifest itself somehow, so she reaches out to take his hand in hers. The look of surprise on Jorah’s face ought to discourage her, but it doesn’t; the days and nights since the Long Night have proven to her that he means more to her than even she realised, and certainly more than he does. Now it feels natural to reach for his hand, to make certain of the pulse in his wrist.

“I don’t know what to do or what to feel,” she confesses. He is the only one she would admit it to. “I feel on the edge, like the ground beneath my feet could break at any moment.”

“And Jon believes this?”

She nods. “He says his birth name was Aegon Targaryen, sixth of his name.”

“And how does he say that Sam and Bran discovered this?”

His methodical, calm questions calm her too—especially when Jorah’s hand squeezes hers, tentative but firm, and she knows he isn’t shying away from her, just his own doubt of whether he truly has the right to comfort her.

“He says that Sam read about it in a book, and Bran...well, Bran saw it, whatever that means.”

“Sam reading about it does ring true,” Jorah concedes. “He found the cure for greyscale in one of his books, and he was diligent enough to carry it out without a hitch. Does he have the evidence? The book?”

“No. I think he expects me to trust him.”

“And do you?” he asks gently.

Dany sighs. “I think I have to. Jon is the most honest person I’ve ever met. I don’t think he’s capable of deceit. You saw him with Cersei in the Dragon Pit.”

“As honourable as Ned Stark,” he murmurs, with just a touch of envy. “And what of Bran Stark?”

“I don’t know,” she admits. In truth, she has not exchanged a word with the youngest Stark. He disconcerts her. She isn’t sure of what she should say to him. The way he stares, as if he can see right through her...it chills her. He’s unreadable, a blank slate; anything could be going on in that head of his. “I don’t know what to make of him.”

“Neither do I,” Jorah says. “I’ve met the Stark children before, when Ned Stark hosted the bannermen here at Winterfell. The two girls haven’t changed that much. Sansa was born for a crown and Arya was as wild as a direwolf, refusing to be tamed by anyone. Jon was silent and surly, hiding in the shadows of the family name. But Bran...he was a bright, curious little thing. Always happy. Chattered on and on about how he wanted to be a knight of the Kingsguard one day. Loved to hear stories. This new Bran...it’s as though all the personality and life has been sucked out of him.”

“And what of his story? That he saw it?” she presses.

He sighs. “I have heard tales of the Three Eyed Raven, as a boy. But that was what I always believed it to be. A story, made up to entertain. I always believed what my eyes could see, none of the fantastical things that the people conjured.” Here he pauses and smiles. “And then my eyes saw a young woman walk into a fire with three stone eggs, and instead of being burned to ash, she birthed the first dragons the world has seen for centuries, with not a blemish on her skin. I started to believe that perhaps there might be some merit to stories after all.”

Daenerys feels her neck prickling with heat under his words, as worshipping as they are factual, though it does not dislodge the sickening weight in her stomach. “So you’re saying you believe it?”

“I don’t think we have a choice,” he says. “Sam and Jon are good men. They wouldn’t lie about it.”

“Not even to strengthen the north?” she says.

“Jon pledged himself to you,” Jorah reminds her.

“He pledged himself to me for the sake of the north,” she retorts. “Now the Great War has been won, he could easily take that back.”

“It would be against his honour,” Jorah argues. “And he loves you.”

At that, Daenerys slips her hand out of his, standing abruptly. “He can’t. He won’t. Not that way. He will not be my lover, not now he’s my nephew.”

“Targaryens wed brother to sister for centuries,” he says tentatively. “Your own mother was your father’s sister. Aunt and nephew...”

“What is the north’s opinion on incest?” she interrupts. The way he lowers his eyes to the bedsheets betrays him. It’s not a question that needs an answer. It’s a practice abhorred. The Kingslayer is whispered about and derived. The idea repulses everyone here, including Ser Jorah, she knows. She is the product of incest herself, and knows that there are insults about that in the plethora of whispers that follow her around like shadows.

“The north accepted the Targaryen tradition for centuries,” he says at last.

“Until my father did what he did,” she retorts, running her fingers through her hair. She knows the stories. No one from House Stark has breathed a word of them to her, but there have been plenty of people to tell her about them, how Rickard and Brandon Stark were burned alive in the throne room. The Targaryen madness striking deep and true and wounding House Stark. The north remembers.

“You are not your father,” Jorah states forcibly. “You are self-aware and strive to better yourself.”

“I’ve done things you disapprove of.” There’s no denying that; she’d seen it in his face when she had confessed to Samwell Tarly that she had burned his father and brother.

“You’ve done things I counselled you caution against,” he says without missing a beat. “I advised against staying in Essos and conquering the slave cities. Dragons Bay wouldn’t exist without you. You inspired hundreds of thousands to your side. The people who followed you to Westeros didn’t do so because they had to. They did so because they wanted to. Because they love you. Because they believe in you.”

Silence rings in the aftermath of his strong words, and Dany finds that she can’t look away from him. Not that she needs to; he breaks first, lowering his eyes as if he has been reprimanded for saying too much. At one time, she might have shied away from such intimacy, re-exerted the distance between them that was fitting for queen and knight. Now it’s a comfort, something she needed to hear from him. She softens, crossing the room to his side once more.

“Thank you,” she tells him.

“For what? I speak the truth, Khaleesi.”

“I hope you continue to do so.”

“Always,” he vows, with such conviction it almost takes her breath away. Unbidden, she reaches out and runs her fingertips over the line of his jaw, angling his head slightly so that he’s looking her full in the face. In front of Tyrion and Varys, she hates to show any kind of weakness, because she knows they’re watching her, still deciding on her worth. Jorah seeks only to help her, doesn’t bat an eyelid. She isn’t just a symbol of hope to him; she’s still human too. It’s that that makes her trust him above all else, because he does not judge no matter what she says.

It spurs her on.

“I don’t know what to do,” she whispers, the words like sin on her tongue. “I don’t know how to move forward, how to handle Jon...He wants to tell his family the truth. But if I let him then the truth might come out, and I will lose my claim completely.”

“No,” he interrupts fiercely. “Do you think anyone ever had the _right_ to rule? People ruled because they could, not because they should, your family included.”

Dany opens her mouth indignantly, but before she can argue Jorah smiles at her—the minutest upturn of the corner of his mouth, nothing more—and she feels the ire draining away.

“I’ve said it to you before,” he whispers. “Every few centuries there comes a person who _should_ rule, who defies all the expectations and changes the dynamics of the whole world. Even without your name, you would be a worthy ruler. Blood doesn’t matter. _Achievements_ matter.”

“Then Jon still has a good claim,” she points out. “He saved Westeros.”

“ _You_ saved Westeros,” he says stubbornly. “Jon would not have achieved anything without your help. You’ve proven your worth in Essos. You proved it in the Long Night. You sacrificed your people for Jon’s cause. You’ve shown once again that you care about the people you rule. You are worthier than anyone.”

“So what do I _do_?” she asks desperately. “Do I forbid Jon from saying anything?”

Jorah mulls on it a moment. “No. Let him tell his family. It’s the right thing to do. You don’t need me to tell you that. You know it too.”

She’d known he’d say that. He often voices what she doesn’t want to. The ugly truth indeed.

“The right thing isn’t always the easiest thing,” he continues. “I learned that from you.”

“But what do I do?” she says. “What do I do when the north want to rebel against me?”

“The truth always comes out, Khaleesi.” His voice is sad and bitter, and it is an experience they both learned in painful ways, with the rawness of his betrayal. “If you try to force him to keep it secret, it will come out in other ways, and then you will not be able to control it.”

“And how do I control _this_?” It’s already slipping out of her tenuous grasp.

Thankfully, Jorah is as level-headed as ever, as sharp and shrewd despite his horrific injuries. “You ask him to tell only his family, and you urge them to keep it a secret until after Cersei is removed. Assure them that once that is done, you and Jon will stand shoulder to shoulder and announce it for the whole of Westeros to hear. That should give you the time to work out how to handle it whilst also reassuring the Starks that you intend on doing the right thing.”

It’s sound and logical. The idea of the whole world knowing the truth is daunting, but...

“Jon recognises you are the best person for this job,” says Jorah. “You have loyal followers who will follow you to the end of the world. It will not be easy, but Westeros will love you in time, as Essos did.”

Dany manages a weak smile. “You certainly know how to make me feel better, ser.”

“It’s one of my duties, Your Grace.”

“And now you must focus on another: getting well so you can return to my side. I cannot hold a War Council without my lord commander there to have his input.”

“Then I will endeavour to be fit and well as soon as possible for you,” he says, inclining his head.

“Good,” she says. “Now, I’ve disturbed you for long enough. I’ll get the kitchens to send you something up. We need you strong.” For a moment she pauses over his bed, then leans down to feather a kiss against the crown of his head once more. The befuddled expression on his face tugs at her heart.

There’s little more she can do for now. To say anything else would be dangerous. So she sweeps the hair from his face one last time and turns on her heels to go.

* * *

The following days are a buzz of activity. There’s an awkwardness about Jorah’s interactions with her that are oddly endearing, even if she is embarrassed herself for her loss of restraint. Still, it isn’t enough to keep her away from him, for he is her port in the storm.

Because there _is_ a storm. The news of Jon’s true parentage has caused a flurry in the Stark ranks. Bran, of course, does not show a flicker of surprise. Sansa looks torn between smugness and disbelief. Arya eyes her with open distrust. The questions come at them thick and fast.

“Jon, do you want to rule?”

“No. Dany is my queen, and I will march south with her to get her on the Iron Throne. I’ve never wanted a crown. Dany has proven herself and has helped save us all. She is the best person for the job.”

“But what about the rest of Westeros?”

“What does that mean for you two, then?”

A long, awkward pause follows this. Daenerys glances across at him, but Jon stares straight ahead, refusing to meet anyone’s eyes. He’s struggling with himself, she can see it in his clenched jaw. His answer isn’t going to be one she likes, she can see that in the agony on his face. Jon isn’t a cruel man. He doesn’t want to hurt her.

He inevitably will.

“I don’t know,” he says at last.

Her heart doesn’t break as much as fissure just slightly, the finest, hairline crack down its length. In truth, she doesn’t know what it means for them, either. Does she still want him as her lover? Did she ever even love him, as she’d thought she might?

It’s the crux of the matter:

_She doesn’t know._

She can’t blame him for feeling the same.

Sansa gives a twisted little smile, as if she is struggling to contain her self-satisfaction. “I see.” She turns blue eyes on her, the eyes of the north. “And what do you intend to do with this information?”

“It should be made public,” Arya adds, not without her own triumph.

Bran Stark sits as silent and watchful as the weirwood trees the north worship.

Jon glances at her. Daenerys takes a deep breath and draws strength from Jorah’s words— _you are worthier than anyone_ —and speaks, keeping her head high.

“After the last war is won, we will hold a public meeting in King’s Landing to proclaim the truth.”

“And then what?” Sansa wants to know.

“And then wolves will howl in celebration and dragons will face the most painful of human realities,” says Bran tonelessly.

Silence falls, heavy, thick, suspicious. Daenerys goes cold all over. Wolves howling in celebration and dragons reduced to humans? It makes no sense. Does that mean she won’t be ruling Westeros? Will the Starks seek to chain her to the north as Jon’s queen? After all, he too is part-dragon...

The others are looking at the Stark boy with curiosity too, but his face is blank. His eyes are blank. There’s no guessing his motive.

Jon breaks the silence with a shake of his head, turning to implore his sisters. “ _Please_ keep this to yourself. We have another war to win before we announce anything. We don’t need the distractions. Dany is still my queen and I intend to honour my pledge to take the north south. If you have any love for me, keep this secret until the fighting is done.”

Sansa’s mouth flattens into a grim line—clearly she doesn’t like that card being played, for she would only make herself look spiteful if she was to leak it. Arya, however, heaves a sigh and steps around the table, tilting her head up so she can look up into his face.

“If that’s what you truly want,” she tells him, casting a glance in Daenerys’ direction. “I love you, Jon. I always have and I always will, no matter what. You’re my brother. You’ve never been my bastard brother or my half-brother. Or my cousin. My _brother_.” Sansa shuffles a bit but Arya ignores her. Daenerys feels a stab of smugness at that too—yes, she knows all about how Sansa used to treat Jon as beneath her, distancing herself from the shame of his bastard status as much as possible. “Even if you weren’t Father’s son, it doesn’t change anything for me. You will always be my brother. So I will keep this to myself for you.”

Jon smiles, relieved. “Thank you, Arya.” He ruffles her hair and she grins back, her whole face transformed for the sibling she clearly adores above all else.

“I think we’re done here,” says Bran with that expressionless finality that makes her flesh ripple with chills.

After exchanging glances, Sansa and Arya make to leave the room, the latter pushing her brother. Jon lingers.

“Thank you, Dany,” he says. “It’ll all work out, you see.”

Daenerys’ throat is too tight to answer. She inclines her head instead and sweeps out of the room, leaving him alone at the war table.

* * *

News of the secret meeting spreads, of course. With Varys and his little birds, it’s bound to. The Spider says nothing, which makes her nervous about what he might know, but Tyrion _does_ , folding his arms across his chest as he glowers up at her.

“Do you not trust me?” he demands. “Is this your way of punishing me for standing up for my brother?”

Daenerys bristles at the implication. “Of course it’s not. The discussion will be revealed as and when it’s necessary. Jon is an ally. I can talk to him about strategy.”

“An ally only?” he returns, raising his eyebrow.

“I’m not discussing this with you,” she snaps. “As my Hand you’re supposed to trust my judgement and trust that when I say you’ll be filled in in good time you will be. Or am I no longer your queen?”

“Of course you are,” Tyrion retorts heatedly. “I believe in your vision. I believe in the world you want to create.”

“Then believe in me now!”

They glare at each other for a moment before Tyrion turns away with an exasperated shake of his head. “Fine! Fine. I trust you. I won’t ask again. But I hope you know what you’re doing, for all of our sakes.”

Daenerys hopes she knows what she’s doing too.

* * *

By the end of the second week Jorah has improved enough to hobble short distances. His face shines with sweat at the exertion, but it is an improvement. Sam works tirelessly to ensure his wounds are kept clean, and Jorah’s eyes have brightened significantly, sharp and intelligent, and Daenerys feels a calmness sweep over her whenever she is in his presence. He will stay strong by her side, and there’s comfort in that.

There’s hope in another matter too: Lyanna is awake. She’s very, very weak. Sam still doesn’t know if she’ll pull through. But he hadn’t thought she’d ever open her eyes again, either. Daenerys hopes that it means she can keep Jorah by her side always.

They do not discuss Jon’s revelation, all too aware of the eyes and ears that are everywhere, but she longs to tell him of the meeting with the Starks, to hear his sound opinion.

The opportunity presents itself a few days later. Sam deems Jorah well enough to traverse around Winterfell if he wishes it, and he does so ardently. He is not a man used to being caged in one small place.

“You shouldn’t go alone,” she says.

Jorah crooks his eyebrow at her. “There’s mothing to worry about, Khaleesi.”

“I will accompany you,” she says decisively, hoping he will understand; thankfully, in tune with her as ever, he does.

“If that’s what you want, Your Grace,” he says.

“It is. Shall we?”

He opens the door for her to step outside first. They walk the draughty corridors together, Daenerys purposefully slowing her pace so as to not exert her knight.

“Where would you like to go?” she asks.

“The godswood,” he says.

She raises an eyebrow, but says nothing. She trusts Jorah’s judgement.

People stare at them as they pass, the Bear Islander and the Dragon Queen, two exiles in their midst. Jorah does not seem to notice, keeping his head high despite his slow pace, the cuts and bruises still stark on his face and hands, the true marks of heroism. In his presence, Daenerys finds she cares less about the looks. She is not alone.

The cold is like a knife slicing straight through her skin, even through her thick furs. She huddles further into them as she trudges through the dense snow with Jorah, already lamenting the loss of the castle’s walls. Winterfell is hardly hospitable, but outside is vicious. Most of her remaining army seeks refuge inside, unused to this clime after Essos.

At last, they reach the entrance of the godswood. Jorah pauses for a moment, then pushes on.

The world muffles at once. The only sound to be heard is the crunch of snow beneath their boots.

“I didn’t think you were the kind of man who put much stock in the gods,” she comments as she follows him deeper into the thick trees.

He grunts. “The Mormonts have followed the old gods for centuries. It’s as much in our blood as the First Men are.”

“But you...”

He shoots her a knowing look over his shoulder. “But I myself have never really prayed to them.”

She knows him well: he’s a cynic. He prefers to believe what his eyes tell him. Was derisive of the fantastical, believing them to be naught but fishwives’ tales or the ravings of madmen—and that included those who followed a faith.

But dragons have been birthed from flame, fire does not harm her, White Walkers came to claim the living and the Lord of Light has brought people back from the grave, some more than once.

He’s seen most of that with his own two eyes. There’s not much of the cynic left in him now.

“There’s a small godswood on Bear Island,” he tells her. “Nothing like this one. But it is a good place to come for quiet contemplation, even if there’s no praying involved.”

And it’s also impossible for someone to sneak in and eavesdrop on them. The godswood is as silent as the Winterfell crypts, the only sound the faint whispering disapproval of the leaves overhead; Daenerys has the distinct feeling that the godswood does not like having a stranger, a Targaryen, in its heart. She hesitates, suddenly unsure.

“What about the Stark boy?” she whispers. “Doesn’t he draw magic for...whatever he does from the godswood?” They’d placed him here to draw out the Night King, after all.

Jorah frowns. “I thought he could see whatever he wanted whenever he wanted. If he wanted to watch us right now we wouldn’t be able to stop him no matter where we were, Khaleesi.”

“I don’t like it,” she complains. “It feels like I am being violated. I’ve had enough of that in my time.” She’d grown to love Drogo, but she is not fool enough to forget those early weeks where he had taken her roughly, with no care for her feelings, and she had clenched her jaw to stop herself sobbing as silent tears coursed down her face.

Jorah says nothing. What is there to say? They cannot change the past. She knows that he is remorseful for the things she had to go through, but he is a practical man, and the Dothraki way is simply how it is. Still, the mood has dampened slightly, and she fights to bring it back to more stable ground. She finds a frozen log and lowers herself down, wincing as the snow seeps through. She pats the space beside her and he follows suit with a grimace of his own, his body stiff and sore. As soon as he is settled she draws closer. Dragons have their own fire, but she craves the heat from a bear’s fur too.

“The meeting with the Starks...” she begins. Jorah’s eyes move back to hers.

“Yes?” he presses. “What is it?”

She glances around, paranoid that they are not alone, but there’s no one there. She lowers her voice. “I think the secret is safe for now. But I don’t know how long it will stay that way...”

“It will be all right,” he reassures her. “These young adults are still the children of Eddard Stark. If there is anything he’s done, it will be to have raised them to have honour. If they’ve sworn to keep the secret, they will do.”

Daenerys isn’t sure she can share the same trust in these northerners who treat her with suspicion and barely disguised contempt. The north is Jorah’s home, but it will never be hers.

“There’s something else,” she says. “Something the boy said. It unsettled me.”

“What was that?”

She scrunches up her nose and tries to bring the exact wording to mind. “He said something about wolves celebrating and dragons facing painful human realities. It gave me a chill. If this Three Eyed Raven business is true, does that mean he’s seeing the future? Does my plan fail? Do the Starks betray me?”

Jorah scratches the stubble on his chin, the sound a soothing grate in the quiet. “I don’t know what any of that means, Khaleesi. But I promise you that I will remain vigilant at all times. I will never let any harm come to you.”

Her heart swells. “I know. But what do you think I should do?”

Jorah mulls the question over. “For now, nothing. We have no evidence that the Starks will do anything, and I do believe that they will keep loyal to their word. And no one else knows?”

“No,” she confirms. “Though Tyrion and Varys are most disgruntled.”

“Tyrion is your Hand and will expect to be kept in the loop. Varys does not like anyone knowing more than he does.”

“I worry that Tyrion is too close to the Starks. He was married to Sansa and he clearly likes Jon, and he has a soft spot for Bran...”

“He is still your Hand. And you trust me.”

“Of course I do!” she says, voice rising in indignation. “I trust no one more than I trust you, Jorah.”

“And I am a Mormont. Sworn by oath to the Starks.”

She knows what he’s inferring, and capitulates with a grudging smile. He returns it, clearly pleased to have wrested such a reaction from her.

“Your allies will have fought against your family at some point. The most important thing is that the people here with you now care not for what’s happened in the past. We believe in _you_ , not in the dynasty of the Targaryen name. We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t.”

“So you’re advising me to let you help me?” she says.

“It’s not your favourite thing, I know.”

“It’s something I can work on.”

She reaches out and takes his hand. He starts a little; she feels him glancing at her. She does not break her stare on the frozen pool of water directly in front of them. After a moment he relaxes, his fingers tightening around hers. The strength in his grip soothes her, and she squeezes back herself.

They remain there in silence for some time, the peace of the godswood around them. They’re not her gods, but a small part of her wonders if they will look upon them in the wars to come.

* * *

As the weeks crawl by and her armies recuperate, Daenerys finds herself mulling over Jorah’s words more and more.

Let them help her.

There’s one thing she wants help with more than anything else.

A subject she broaches with Jorah.

He pales when he hears her request. “Khaleesi—”

“I don’t want to hear any protests,” she tells him fiercely. “This is what I want.”

“You shouldn’t have to—”

“Would you say that if I were a man? No one protests Jon being on the front line as King in the North. My brother Rhaegar fought on the frontlines, and so did the Usurper.”

“You will not be fighting on the front lines,” he says firmly. “You will be on Drogon, like the Dragon Rider you are. You do not need to sully yourself with the unpleasantness of war.”

She throws her hands up. “I thought you of all people would understand.”

“Of course I understand.” Jorah’s voice is the placating kind that might be used on an unruly child. “But you have many people who would put themselves in harm’s way for you.

 _Men died for Rhaegar because they loved him_ , she remembers Ser Barristan had told her once. She had men that would do that for her now, men like Grey Worm and her fierce Dothraki warriors.

Jorah. He’d die a thousand deaths for her, and never falter at all.

And she would do anything to prevent it.

“I don’t want anyone to die needlessly for me,” she says.

“That’s the business of war.”

“Don’t patronise me, ser.” She glares at him until he lowers his eyes. “Besides, I should learn for my own safety.”

“Your dragons will keep you safe. They’ll do anything for their mother.”

“They can’t be there all the time. No one can. Or have you forgotten the war against the dead already?”

Jorah swallows hard, a pained expression flashing across his face. It’s not fear for himself. It’s fear for her, and his terror at being the only thing standing between her and death. She knows his aversion to her learning how to fight has little to do with her sex. He was raised on Bear Island, where women are treated with the strength of men. Lyanna Mormont had almost died slaying a _giant_ , and only a child at that. He did not tell her she could not fight alongside the other Bear Islanders.

No, his worry has everything to do with the fact that she is not just a queen in his eyes but the woman he loves too. He wants to keep her safe from harm as a man wants to protect a woman. But it is a harsh reality they must face: war means death. Death of people they love. She’s already lost Ser Barristan, Viserion.

She almost lost him.

She will not be the reason he almost dies again. He has to understand that.

She has to tell him that.

So Daenerys reaches across the gap between them and grabs his hand. It’s almost second nature now, _natural_.

“I want to be able to protect my people as they protect me,” she says.

“What good are you to your people if you’re dead?”

“What good are _you_ to me if you’re dead?” This is it. She looks him square in the face. Shock’s in every line. The face she has looked upon almost every day for so many years. Her dearest friend, her most loyal servant.

_Hers._

“You would have died for me on the Long Night,” Daenerys says flatly.

Jorah looks insulted. “Of course I would!”

“And what if I don’t want that?”

A small smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “Well, I would hope you don’t.”

“This is not a laughing matter, ser.”

“I know. It’s a grave matter.”

Daenerys scowls at him. “Now you’re testing my patience.”

He ducks his head. “I’m sorry, Khaleesi. I just don’t want you to be worrying about things you can’t change.”

“But that’s the thing. I _can_ change it, by being better able to look after myself. What _would_ you do if I got isolated and there was no one around to protect me? I would be slaughtered within seconds. It would benefit _all_ of us if I can protect myself. It would mean that you could focus on yourselves in the fight and I have the knowledge to protect myself should the need ever arise.”

She watches the lump rise and fall in his throat. If there’s one thing he doesn’t want to contemplate, it’s her death. The thought of her death is the only thing that will convince him now. She holds his gaze, knowing that if someone breaks first, it will be him.

Of course it is. She is queen of his heart too.

“Then if you want to learn, you should learn from the best.”

“I want to learn from _you_.”

“I’m not as good as I once was. You’d be better with someone like Brienne of Tarth. She’s a fierce fighter in her own right. And a knight to boot, thanks to Jaime Lannister.”

“I don’t _want_ Brienne of Tarth.”

“Is that because she’s sworn to Sansa Stark?”

He’s teasing her again, and she musters the darkest scowl she can, pulling her hands free from his so she can fold her arms across her chest. Jorah’s hands remain suspended for a moment before he drops them back to his side, his left going to the pommel of Heartsbane, which Samwell Tarly refused to take back.

“It’s got _nothing_ to do with that,” she says primly, but adds, “Though she probably _would_ put a sword through my back if Lady Stark asked her to.”

“Jon, then. He’s one of the best fighters I’ve ever seen. And he loves you. He wants to keep you safe.”

 _You’re one of the best fighters I’ve ever seen. You love me and want to keep me safe_ , she thinks, but says aloud, “Jon has barely spoken two words to me when he hasn’t had to since he found out that we’re related. He doesn’t even want to be in the same room as me, never mind in those kinds of close quarters. I don’t want to put him in a difficult position.” Nor does she want to have to stare at that twisted, uncomfortable expression for hours on end. Nor does _she_ really want to spend any time with him right now. Everything is too raw, too unclear. Is her resentment for his revelation simply clouding everything else at the moment, or has the passion fizzled for good?

Jorah huffs, setting his jaw in that familiar way of his that lets her know he’s resisting the urge to say something she might not like. The sudden pang in her chest takes her aback; it’s a look she’s seen only once since his banishment, a fleeting shadow when she announced that she would be sailing from Dragonstone with Jon Snow. Perhaps he feels like he no longer has the right to bicker with her like he used to. She might have forgiven him, but he is a long way from forgiving himself.

Suddenly, there’s nothing she wants in the whole world more than them just _being_. Just the way they were. Jorah smooth and confident. Sometimes bullheaded, sometimes flirtatious, sometimes proud. Never afraid to speak his mind. Hers in ways she couldn’t comprehend.

“Grey Worm,” is all he says now.

“Grey Worm is a wonderful general. But his best skill is with his spear. And I don’t want to take him away from Missandei needlessly.” Daenerys know of the rapport between them; she’d seen the way her friend had thrown herself into Grey Worm’s after the Long Night, unheeding of the gore on his clothes and skin. Time is precious. None of them know how long they’ve got left. She will not rob the two of them of any time. She knows Missandei would not begrudge her, but she means it when she says she will take care of the people who follow her.

Jorah has the look of a helpless puppy. He has no other argument. She presses her advantage.

“You’re skilled with a sword and a lance and a spear, so you could train me in whichever I wanted. You rode into battle on the frontlines against the dead. You took a thousand blows and still stayed standing. Who could be better than you?”

“Khaleesi—”

“I’m tired of arguing,” she interrupts. “Or do you not want to spend the time with me?” She lowers her eyes, looks at him through her lashes. Men can’t resist that, apparently. Something about the helpless innocence.

Evidently Jorah is like every other of his sex. He flusters for a moment before resignation shadows his features.

“Of course it’s not that,” he says. “If you so command it, I will of course serve you.”

“I do command it,” she says. “Thank you, ser.” He’s hiding behind the formality once more, and she will allow him that. She’s feeling generous.

In truth, she doesn’t want to reveal her own vulnerabilities. That he is the person she feels most comfortable around. Safest around. That she would spend all of her time in this strange land by his side if she could.

Jorah exhales deeply through his nose, his expression pained. “Very well. We’ll start as soon as you’d like.”

“Tomorrow would please me,” she says, then nudges him affectionately. “Don’t look so sullen, my bear. I promise to go easy on you.”

“I don’t think you know _how_ to go easy on people,” he grumbles, but then smiles, his worried, lined features lightening. “It’s the dragon in you.”

And Daenerys knows he’s the only person in the whole world who wouldn’t have her any other way.

* * *

The next day arrives on cold winds. Daenerys bundles herself up in her warmest furs and waits for Jorah outside his chambers. He emerges a few minutes later all in black, Heartsbane clinking at his side. He’s kitted himself in his armour.

“This looks serious,” she jokes.

“I wouldn’t be doing my job if I _didn’t_ look serious,” he replies, unsmiling. She flashes to Tyrion and what he would say: _Mormonts are sullen and dull. They wouldn’t know a joke if it danced around them naked._ “Besides, I can see that you’re taking it seriously yourself.”

Daenerys can’t deny that: she’d asked Missandei to braid her hair like the Dothraki, scraping it all from her face. She’s used to having regal, impressive styles now, but the simplicity of the Dothraki is far more practical for combat. It’s not going to get in her way and blind her. And sometimes she thinks that she could do with reminding everyone that before she was a queen she was a khaleesi, and that at least before the Long Night she had commanded the largest, greatest khalasar the world had ever seen. Perhaps, if she does well, she can start braiding bells into her locks.

The people of Westeros would hate that, to have a savage foreign queen.

“Where are we going?” she asks as they fall into step.

“That depends,” he says. “Do you want anyone to see you?”

“Why shouldn’t they?”

He shrugs. “You’re probably damned if you do and damned if you don’t, Khaleesi. If you hide out of sight, the people of Westeros will worry what magic you are conjuring. If you train in plain sight, the people of Westeros will tremble to see you with a sword in your hand, for they will fear that you will use it against them. That’s why I still think you would have been wise to train with Jon. He is their king.”

Daenerys sets her jaw. She still doesn’t like the reminder of how the north worships Jon. “ _You’re_ a northman too.”

“A disgraced one,” he reminds her. “I fled from justice like a coward.”

A coward and a fool in love. He’d done it all for love of this mysterious Lynesse, who had broken him in all the ways it was possible to break a man, and she had left him for another lover when she had taken all she could from him.

She tries very hard not to listen to the niggling voice in the back of her head that whispers she has a lot in common with Lynesse. The voice sounds like Sansa’s, and she hates it all the more.

“You’re from Bear Island,” she says abruptly to drown it out. “That counts for something.”

“Not here it doesn’t,” he says grimly. “I told you, we’re a small house.” Possibly the smallest one left in the north, with only two surviving members. “We’re hardly a house that any of the others acknowledge. We don’t often produce men or women who sit at a king’s right side.”

“You produce some of the best warriors,” she tells him. “Jon told me that your house was the first to join in the battle against the Boltons. And no other house has produced as many fierce women warriors. This would be quite a notable achievement, wouldn’t it, being the house that taught the Dragon Queen how to fight?”

“Aye, it would,” Jorah concedes with a quirk of the lips. “And I am honoured to have been chosen, Khaleesi.”

“If we are to be damned either way, we might as well let them see,” she reasons. “At least then they can’t spread ridiculous rumours.”

“You’d be surprised,” Jorah jokes. “The southerners are fond of saying that we are a superstitious folk. I’m sure they can conjure up something. But if that’s what you wish...”

“I have nothing to hide.” She tosses her head defiantly. “Lead on, Ser Jorah.”

They are soon down in the courtyard.

“Wait here,” Jorah bids. “I’ll go and fetch us some swords.”

Daenerys nods, trying not to show her discomfort at the way the others skirt around her. It’s so lonely, being feared rather than loved.

She’s grateful for Jorah’s return from the armoury, but wrinkles her nose at his prizes.

“A wooden sword?”

“Not even queens start with steel,” Jorah says, grinning. The smile, so beautiful for its rarity and its sincerity, more than eases the disappointment she feels at the idea of using pretend swords. He’s handsome when he smiles. Not that he isn’t handsome the rest of the time—she’s not stupid, and she’s not blind. Jorah could have any woman he wanted if he put his mind to it. They’d be fools not to want him.

What did that make her? she wonders, but pushes it away. It makes no difference. She can’t love him the way he wants her to. A knight and a queen. It’s the tragic story for the history books. A knight cannot be with his queen. A queen needs a king.

Sometimes she wishes it wasn’t so. Things might be so much simpler that way, if she was just a young woman with no expectations. A woman without the titles that weigh her down as much as hold her up.

“Khaleesi?”

Jorah’s smile has faded. She grabs one of the swords from his relaxed grip. “I suppose this will have to do, then.”

“We’ll progress to steel in time. The last thing we need to do is inadvertently injure each other.”

She snorts. “You mean _me_ injure _you_. I don’t think you’d be injuring me. You know what you’re doing.”

“I _have_ got enough scars to be going on with,” he agrees.

It’s a statement and one he bears with honour; she knows he would bear a thousand scars for her and be content with each and every one. But that doesn’t make it easier for her. Only brings back the horror of the Long Night. Jorah’s limbs shaking with the effort of struggling back to his feet. Doing it anyway, even as he should have stayed down. Blood and gore streaked across his face. The weariness in his limbs from exerting so much effort for so long, each swing of the sword a little slower than the one before. His defences lowering. The swords slicing through his armour as easily as a knife through butter. The hot spray of his blood arcing and blossoming. Falling to his knees alongside the wights. Falling to her own knees beside him, mud seeping through her furs, tugging him into her arms, cupping his face in her palm, silently pleading with him to stay with her as the light faded from his eyes and his lungs laboured...

She will never put either of them in that position again. She doesn’t think she’d survive it a second time.

“Let’s get started,” she says, tightening her grip on her sword.

And so they do.

For hours on end. Daenerys follows each instruction diligently. Here she is not a queen. She does not know best. She needs a teacher who is.

Jorah is a good teacher. Patient. Kind. Gentle. He shows her how to stand, how to hold her sword. Points out the places she should aim for, how best to move to defend herself.

She’s not very good. She lunges forward to jab him in the side but he bats her sword away almost lazily, sending it spinning into the snow. He moves forward with the fluidity of a big cat, pressing the point of his sword into the side of her chest, right over her heart.

“Dead,” he says softly.

Daenerys scowls. “I’m trying.”

“I know you are. You’ll get better. It’s all in the practice. You think I was good overnight? I wasn’t. In fact, I was poor for many months.”

“I can’t imagine that.”

“Well, it’s true. I was stubborn. I wanted to do things my way.”

“Now that I _can_ imagine.”

He smirks at her. “I was constantly bruised. And then they gave me steel. You can imagine how exciting that was for a young lordling.”

“I can.”

“It didn’t stay that way for long. The first cut saw to that.”

“They _cut_ you?”

“We’re Bear Islanders. We’re a tough sort.” He puffs his chest out at that. He’s proud of it. “I could be an arrogant thing. It was what I needed. Took me down a few pegs, made me realise that it wasn’t just a game. I didn’t want to be cut like that again, so I started working harder at it. Watched the men in the yard, practiced imitating them. Gradually I got better. And now I’m a decent swordsman.”

“I’d say you’re more than decent, Jorah.”

“Not compared to some, Khaleesi.”

She doesn’t want to hear Jon’s name fall from his lips, for she knows he’s the swordsman he’s inferring.

“Well, you’re good at taking the hits,” she says. “No other man could have taken what you did on the Long Night. _That_ makes you the best swordsman.”

“The point of a swordsman is not to get poked full of holes,” he snorts. “So for that I think it makes me a rather poor swordsman. You don’t see Jon Snow shuffling round like an old man, recovering from a hundred holes in his body.”

Jon Snow, Jon Snow, Jon Snow. Everything keeps coming back to him. She can’t escape him even for a few hours. The frustration burns like dragonfire in her belly and she bends to pick up her sword, shaking it free of snow before resuming her stance, knees slightly bent and apart, back slightly curved, a cat ready to launch itself at its prey.

“You shouldn’t hold the sword with both hands,” is all he says. “It restricts your movements, and it’s not a greatsword.”

“It’s heavy,” she complains.

“Only because you’re not used to it. Once your arm muscles are stronger you’ll manage it with ease.”

Jorah’s arms must be very strong, she muses. Heartsbane is a greatsword—she knows that by the length of its broad blade and the fact that it’s almost half as tall as Jorah is. And yet on the Long Night she saw him charge into battle with the sword in only one hand, swinging it with the ease he might have swung Longclaw if it was still his blade. And the blows he rained down on his enemy were not weak blows but had the force to take a wight’s head clean off its shoulders. He’d rarely swung it with two hands.

She wants to have that ease and fluidity, to tap into the strength of the Bear Islander who remains strong by her side through it all.

And so they train. And train. And train. Day after day, until her whole body aches and she thinks her arm might drop off. A dance of dragons and bears, serpentine grace and brute strength. Parrying, parrying, lunging, weaving, ducking, thrusting. Sweat rolls down her face and soaks her under her furs. Her breath steams in the frozen air, harsh ragged pants for breath as Jorah comes for her, sending snow spraying in all directions. He knows what he’s doing. He’s more than a Westerosi fighter who hacks and lunges with brute force. He’s a Braavosi Water Dancer, slick and elegant and as unpredictable as the tide. He’s a Dothraki warlord, fierce and fearless. He’s learned his trade all over, a complete package.

It’s almost more than she can keep up with. She does not have the stamina of a warrior, so used to her Targaryen heritage as a dragonrider. Her blocks come slow, and she winces when the wood bites into her side. Jorah pauses at once.

“My queen, are you hurt?” he asks.

She’s sore, and her side pulses where he struck her. But Daenerys Targaryen has suffered worse than that at the hands of men. She’s been raped, struck, whipped, jeered at.

“I’m fine,” she gasps, pushing her braid over her shoulder. “Don’t worry.”

“It’s my job to worry. We can stop. We’ve already come a long way today.”

She shakes her head stubbornly. “Cersei won’t be resting. She’ll be playing her games, organising her troops, plotting her sneaky schemes. I can’t afford to rest. We’re on the back foot. We haven’t got time.” Her troops are smaller, depleted, exhausted. She has to have the strength for them. “Let’s go again.”

And so they do. They attract a lot of attention from the northerners, who mutter amongst themselves and exchange looks. Let them. She doesn’t care. She concentrates instead on the clack clack clack of the wood, counting the beats in her head. It’s a dance without music, intimately knowing the opponent. No one knows Jorah as well as she does. They communicate without words; she can read his mind almost like she does Drogon’s. She follows his every move, watches his eyes. He makes to duck to the left but lunges to the right instead; she brings up the flat of her sword to block his jab, and it goes spinning out of his hand with the impact. He blinks in surprise, caught off-guard; grinning, she launches herself forward for the killer blow.

But Jorah is a warrior of many years of experience. He’s had countless battles, survived so many swords aimed at him.

Quick as a flash he ducks out of the way of her flailing sword. She connects with thin air, stumbles...

And strong arms catch her. Pull her up a little more roughly than necessary. Hold her tight. Cold steel bites into the tender flesh of her throat.

“Dead,” Jorah murmurs low in her ear, voice the grating rumble of a bear.

He’s unsheathed his dirk from its place on his waist.

In a real battle situation, she would be frightened.

Right now, all she can focus on is the press of Jorah’s hard body against hers. His strong hand on her waist. The brush of his gruff against the tip of her ear. Those husky, honeyed tones, making the hairs on the back of her neck prickle pleasantly. The scent of pine and wood in her nostrils.

“Ah, we always knew that Mormont wanted to stick you with his dagger. Never thought we’d get to see it.”

At the sound of Tyrion’s voice, Jorah releases her. She misses the warmth of his body immediately, and her heart jolts.

Tyrion is upon them with Varys at his heels before she recovers enough to turn. Jorah’s features are stony as she glances at them, his eyes trained on the little lion.

“You’re not funny,” he growls.

“On the contrary, I’m told I’m very funny. Of course, I’ve usually paid the whores.”

“I can vouch that you’re not funny,” says Varys.

Tyrion waves that away. “You’ve got no balls and no sense of humour, so I’m afraid that you don’t qualify to judge. Even Mormont has more going for him than that. At least he has a longsword. Not that he’s whipped it out in a long time. He’s very out of practice in that regard...”

Jorah’s hand twitches around his dirk; Daenerys hastily steps between them. “What did you want?”

“A word, Your Grace, if it pleases you.”

“Of course.”

“Somewhere more private, I think.” Varys’ eyes flicker over to Jorah. “Alone would be best.”

“Ser Jorah is Lord Commander of my Queensguard. He almost died to protect me. I think I can trust him to guard any secret you may wish to discuss.”

Varys bows. “Of course, Your Grace. But be that as it may, I think it should be for your ears only.”

“I’ll leave you, Your Grace,” Jorah murmurs, making the decision for her.

“We will continue this later,” she calls. “I’ll come and find you.”

Her heart aches watching him trudge away.

“The war room will suffice, I think,” says Varys briskly. He casts a pointed look at the northerners milling about, sullen and mute and evidently pretending they’re not eavesdropping. “If you would like to lead the way?”

Daenerys resists the urge to roll her eyes, stooping to pick up Jorah’s sword as if it will give her strength. Wordlessly, she sweeps out of the courtyard, Tyrion trotting to keep up. Not a word is exchanged until they arrive at their destination.

When they do, she sweeps around the war table and fixes them with a glower.

“I don’t appreciate you doing that in front of the northerners,” she says.

“Sorry, Your Grace,” says Tyrion, sounding anything but. He hitches himself up into one of the seats and reaches across for the lone goblet sitting there, pulling a face when he peers into it. “Gods, where’s the wine? What in seven hells do these northerners live on?”

“No wine,” Daenerys says, snatching the tankard out of his hands. She sets it down with a clunk, continuing to glare.

Varys does his usual simpering, bowing and scraping. “Your Grace, thank you for seeing us.”

“You hardly gave me a choice,” she says, pulling out the chair at the head of the table. She seats herself and clasps her hands.

“I’m afraid _we_ have little choice, Your Grace,” says Varys, pulling out a chair of his own. “I’m afraid we’ve heard worrying whispers.”

“About?”

“You and the good lord commander,” says Tyrion. “The Bear and the Maiden Fair. I’m sure you’re familiar with it.”

“Then I’m afraid to disappoint you, I have no idea what it is. I lived in Essos my entire life, if you remember. A northern superstition or something?”

“I’m surprised your brother never taught you about Westeros.”

“Only about the great Targaryen lineage.” She shakes her head. “Did you come to speak in riddles to me?”

“No, I came to speak plain. There are whispers from the shadows that you’re fucking your lord commander.”

 _“What!?”_ Dany sputters, feeling her cheeks growing rosy. “That’s absolutely ridiculous!”

“ _He licked the honey from her hair_ ,” Tyrion quotes blithely. “ _’My bear,’ she sang, ‘My bear so fair!’_ ”

“Jorah is my good friend!” she blusters. “I do not care for him that way.” _And_ he’s recovering from grave injuries. Such things would be unwise in his current state…

She blushes, not finishing the thought.

“We know that,” Varys says with slippery sliminess that does nothing to make her feel better. “But the north does not. I think it’s better that we siphon out such poison before it infects everything.”

“This is ridiculous.”

“So you may think, but these things have a habit of rearing their ugly heads when they are least convenient. Just denying the rumours will not be enough. However, if you were to perhaps announce your intentions to marry a certain northern king...”

Daenerys goes cold all over, as if she’s been plunged into the snow drifts outside Winterfell. “Excuse me?”

“You can’t deny that you were showing a certain...preference for Jon Snow,” Varys says slyly. “And politically, he would be a good choice. If the north wants independence, this would be a good way of appeasing them. Their king also the king of Westeros? I’m sure they could find the stomach to remain a part of the Seven Kingdoms.”

“And have them continuously plotting to have Jon overthrow me? No.”

“Jon Snow is his father’s son,” Tyrion says idly. “If Ned Stark hadn’t been so gallingly noble, he would have kept his head. And done us all a favour and rid us of Cersei and my shit of a nephew. Tommen and Myrcella were sweet children and I would not have wanted to see any bad happen to them, but I quite happily sat by and watched Joffrey choke. Alas, Ned Stark did not, and my vicious nephew had him beheaded. Stark loved his honour more than his own lady wife, of that I have no doubt. Jon Snow is the same.”

“Jon Snow doesn’t love me,” she snaps.

“Oh, but Your Grace, he does,” says Tyrion. “I’ve seen him with you. And you with him.”

“Then your observations are incorrect. I do not love him.”

The words leave her mouth in a strong, instinctive burst. Loud. Clear. Unwavering.

Ringing silence is left in the wake of her outburst.

And in that moment she knows.

Knows that the instinctive denial is the truth.

She does not love Jon. Did she ever?

If she’s honest with herself, brutally honest with herself...

No. She mistook the loneliness and the desire to have _someone_ with love. What has she ever known of love? Viserys’ cruelty. Rape and belittlement at the hands of Drogo.

Unconditional, fervent, intense love from Jorah.

The thought makes her heart jolt, and she pushes that away too. Jorah’s love is different, but it is no less overpowering. It’s too _much_ , too stifling. Dragons soar free. She can’t be contained. She can’t love him. Not the way he wants her to. She has to protect herself. She had almost lost him as a dear friend, and it had almost destroyed her. If she took him as a lover and she lost him in the coming war...

It does not bear thinking about. Opening her heart, allowing him inside...

She straightens her back, and fixes both Tyrion and Varys with a steely glare.

“You can rest easy,” she says. “I have no intention of letting Ser Jorah anywhere near my bed. However, I will _not_ be changing the way I treat him. He is a valued member of my council. I will have him officially installed as Lord Commander of my Queensguard when I take my throne. He will serve closely by my side. If people want to whisper, let them. I have nothing to hide. I will not punish a man for loyalty.”

“And love,” Tyrion points out. “It’s no secret that Mormont loves you. Everyone in your ranks knows. If someone lets it slip, it will spread like wildfire through Westeros. It could be used against you.”

“I will _not_ be sending Ser Jorah away, or distancing myself from him,” she says through gritted teeth. “I thank you for your concern, but I will not be taking action. I trust I still have your support.”

“And what of the King in the North?” Varys says quietly.

“There is nothing more to discuss there, either.”

“I disagree,” says Tyrion. “You were inseparable from Dragonstone. Now you say you don’t love him. Something has changed between you. You can deny it all you want, Your Grace, but it was plain as day to see that something was developing between you.”

“And now it isn’t. I shouldn’t have to explain myself to you.”

“Then you aren’t ready to play this game of thrones. Every decision you ever make will have to be explained to those around you unless you want to end up the Tyrant Queen, same as your father before you.”

That’s a low blow. Daenerys curls her hands into fists, her nails biting into her palms. “Do not compare me to my father. That’s not fair. I have no wish to rule with fear. But nor should anyone forget that I am a woman as well as a queen.”

“Unfortunately, Your Grace, that _is_ the sacrifice you have to make,” says Varys. “You cannot be a woman if you are a queen; you can’t be a queen if you are a woman. That’s the way the game of thrones works. I suggest you make your decision quickly because we will be making our way south soon enough to take on Cersei. You cannot sit the iron throne if you don’t know where your heart lies.”

“I know where my heart lies.”

“I’m not so certain,” Tyrion says.

“I’m not entertaining this conversation further. Now, I want to get back to my training. As you have both pointed out, there is a war to win, and I need to be as prepared as my soldiers.”

“Your Grace,” says Varys, bowing again and shooting Tyrion a pointed look as he opens his mouth to continue arguing. He’s clever, she’ll give him that. No doubt it’s how he’s survived so long. But he wants to serve the realm. Of that she is sure. He has no real care for her as a queen. It makes him an asset and a danger. She trusts that he will continue to come to her if he has issues, but how long will he disagree with her before searching for an alternative?

Finding Jon?

It’s a worry for another time. For now she is caught up in her indignant righteousness, in the sting that hurts all the more for the grain of truth that might be there. Leaving her two advisors sitting in their chairs, she sweeps from the room.

* * *

As the time passes and Jorah grows stronger, nothing gets easier.

The same questions swirl and swirl inside her like the dance of the dragons, and she doesn’t know what to _do_.

What she does know is that whatever she had with Jon is dead in the water. He still can’t bear to look her in the eyes, awkward and distant, and she doesn’t want to be around him. His awkwardness, his rejection, makes her feel even more of a stranger than ever.

So she seeks out Jorah instead. Jorah, who has been with her from the beginning, who makes her feel safe in a way no one else ever has.

He somehow has the power to make her forget the things that haunt her. Jon’s parentage, the unobtainable Iron Throne, the uncertainty that plagues her every thought.

But there’s another kind of uncertainty that only grows stronger by the day.

And that’s about Jorah himself.

Lyanna’s survival is almost guaranteed. It will be a long time before she can travel anywhere, but Jorah reports she has lost none of her sharp tongue. He sits by her bedside a couple of times a week, until she grows tired of his lingering and orders him to leave. He laughs with joy when he tells her that there will be a Lady of Bear Island for quite some time, and her heart bloats inside at the look on his lined face, at her own relief that _he is still hers_.

Sometimes it’s as if the scales have been lifted from her eyes. She’s been living in the darkness so long that she hadn’t even realised she’d gone blind; now that the clouds have lifted the light hurts to look at. Those clouds twist like wisps of smoke, making patterns and signals in the sky. The Dothraki would say they were omens of something.

As they twist into Jorah’s form, Dany would rather not think about what that might mean.

Nothing, she thinks with a fierce rush. It’s because he’s her friend, because she almost lost him…

Oh, if only it was as simple as that.

There are hot springs under Winterfell, she’s heard. Sometimes, in the hour of the wolf, her thoughts betray her, and she imagines oh-so-innocently happening across Jorah in one of those pools, free from knightly restraint. She’d discard the chains that hang heavy around her own neck and slip into the water with him, stretch out her body, look at him from beneath her lashes and confess the one thing she’s never told another living soul: that she can’t _swim_ , but oh, ought she not be taught how to lest she ever fall from Drogon’s back over an expanse of water and Jorah probably grew up daring like a silverfish through the foams at Bear Island so wouldn’t he be the perfect tutor in this too, and then—

And then…?

Then she pulls her thoughts away, hot all over and angry at herself for entertaining such notions.

There will be a time in the future where she does just that, sneaking to that sheltered spot in King’s Landing far from prying eyes, racing him to the little outcroppings of rocks that line the coast, never quite good enough to beat him but a most determined student under his unique instruction, but she is no Three Eyed Raven and can’t possibly know what the future holds for her.

There is only one thing she _does_ know. She has to displace Cersei on the Iron Throne. She has to free Westeros from her tyranny or die in the attempt.

And that means she can’t have room in her heart for anything else.


End file.
